The mayors of Little Rock and North Little Rock turned down an Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department proposal for the cities to assume ownership of the aging Broadway Bridge as a pedestrian crossing.
In a letter sent Thursday to Highway Department Director Scott Bennett, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays said they don’t like the department’s proposal to build a new bridge next to the old one, they don’t think the design is safe and their cities cannot afford to repair and maintain the 90-year-old bridge.
“The projected costs of the structure are far more than our strained municipal budgets can afford in the foreseeable future,” the mayors wrote.
The letter was written in response to Bennett’s criticism Wednesday of a study the cities commissioned to assess whether they could take on ownership of the bridge. In the letter, the mayors argued that the best way forward is to rehabilitate the existing Broadway Bridge and continue to use it as a traffic crossing until another bridge can be built upriver.
“We can only hope that this letter will begin a productive dialogue between the AHTD, and the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock, which could further clarify what now appears to be opposite viewpoints on a number of issues, ...” the letter read.
The bridge, which the Highway Department scheduled for replacement by 2013, has been a point of conflict between the agency and the cities since the department announced plans to replace it in 2009 at a cost of $58 million. The department has said the new bridge should either be built where the existing bridge stands, or be built next to the existing bridge, which carries 23,000 vehicles across the Arkansas River each day. The old bridge could remain as a pedestrian/bicycle crossing or be demolished when the new bridge is completed.
Bennett told highway commissioners Wednesday that the bridge cannot be rehabbed, and that his agencyhas not studied that option, because it doesn’t make engineering sense.
Highway Department spokesman Randy Ort said the department would not comment on the letter until Bennett had an opportunity to read it.
According to the cities’ study released earlier this month, the cost to rehabilitate the bridge for pedestrian use would range between $16 million and $24 million. The mayors say that is “significantly in excess of the $3 million” the highway department had budgeted for the bridge’s demolition but agreed to make available to cities if they took over the bridge. As for the aesthetics of a side-by-side bridges, the mayors said the presentation was “unworkable.”
When they proposed that the replacement bridge be built upriver at Chester Street, they hoped the pedestrian bridge would have broad entry plazas on either side and be a “destination,” the mayors wrote. But an adjacent new bridge - which would have to connect to the old Arkansas 70 approaches on either side of the river - would leave only room for narrow sidewalks at the bridge entry.
The adjacent bridges would also make it “very difficult, if not impossible,” for tractor-trailers to reach the new loading dock at the Robinson Center because of the replacement bridge’s steep curvature angle, the mayors said.
“The extreme curvature of the new span in order to align with the existing rightof-way raises additional safety concerns as the span descends quickly toward its intersection with Markham (S)treet,” the mayors said.
The mayors also took issue with the height differential between the two bridges, as proposed. They said that difference would disrupt the western view of the river, and the 25-foot minimum distance between the bridges “raises additional concerns about traffic noise.”
Also, a requirement that a barrier be built between the bridges worries the mayors, who say that the barrier could “obscure sight lines.”
The cities’ study, conducted by an Illinois architectural engineering firm, provides a “viable and realistic” option: rehabilitating the current bridge and extending it’s life for 50 years, the mayors said.They contend that full rehabilitation would cost $16 million to $25 million, less than half the $58 million price tag of a new plate girder bridge replacement.
Total maintenance over the added 50 years of the bridge’s life cycle would cost between $21 million and $42 million, according to the report.
Rehabilitation, the mayors contend in their letter, “willresult in major structural improvements to a bridge that has served us so well for the last 90 years.”
Bennett said Wednesday that rehabilitation would still leave a 90-year-old bridge, and that the cities’ report did not take into account some structural deficiencies, such as approach spans not located on bedrock, which would need repair or replacement and might not be eligible for federal funds - thus increasing costs.
Stodola said some of those problems can be worked out by consensus among engineers.
As for the state’s contention that the bridge replacement - largely funded through federal Bridge Replacement dollars - is obligated to be spent by 2013, the mayors say a new transportation law passed earlier this month provides the department more flexibility.
They say the Highway Department is no longer under pressure of losing the money obligated for the project for the 2013 fiscal year because the new law moves the former highway bridge replacement program into a fund which can be used on any “unfunded highway projects” statewide.
Ort said Wednesday the department was still obligated to spend those funds because the state’s federal funding levels were kept the same.
The cities have discarded the idea the bridge be replaced in its current location because it would take the bridge out of service for at least 18 months and be a major disruption to daily traffic on either side of the river.
Bennett said Wednesday that his department planned to advance its options to a public comment meeting scheduled for Aug. 23, but the mayors say they want to hold a meeting with the Highway Department and the Federal Highway Administration.
At that meeting, they said they could further discuss the issues and options.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/27/2012