Bridge closed; bridge really closed: Amesville/Water Street bridge blocked abruptly

AMESVILLE — A 100-year-old truss bridge connecting the Amesville section of Salisbury with Falls Village was closed abruptly late last week after officials from the state Department of Transportation (DOT) determined it was no longer safe. The bridge will likely be closed for at least a month.

At 2 p.m, Friday, June 13, Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand got a call from Ted LaPierre, who works for the DOT’s bridge inspection and safety division, informing him the bridge would be closed, effective immediately, because of concerns about structural deterioration.

It is unclear when it will reopen, but Rand said the state is “crunching numbers†to determine if the bridge can be reopened temporarily to light vehicles such as cars and ambulances. Otherwise, he expects the bridge to be closed for a minimum of a month.

Rand said he was taken by surprise since he was told a couple of months ago the bridge, which crosses the Housatonic River by the Falls Village power plant, was deemed structurally safe enough to be used until a repair could be made in the next several months.

Falls Village First Selectman Pat Mechare said she, too, received a call from LaPierre, who had inspected the bridge earlier that morning.

“The crew looked under the bridge,†Mechare said Friday afternoon. “Evidently they didn’t like what they saw.â€

Rand said LaPierre told him there was evidence of “a broken chord,†a structural support which runs under the length of the bridge’s decking. On Monday they told him the problem was three broken gusset plates, which fuse load-bearing columns with beams and trusses.

In a follow-up e-mail over the weekend, Rand was exasperated because the bridge was inspected last year and the DOT report indicated the bridge was structurally sound and warranted only minor repairs to the west end, where a loose joint on the Salisbury side needed fixing.

Rand had planned to have one of the town’s engineering firms, Wengell, McDonnell & Costello (WMC), supervise the repairs, which would be adequate for a five- to 10-year fix performed by the town’s road crew, while Salisbury and Falls Village researched additional long-term reconstruction alternatives.

“I told the press less than a month ago that things were OK, that we needed some repairs on the west end, but that the bridge had passed the recent DOT inspection,†Rand said. “I guess I was correct that the bridge passed inspection, but something was either overlooked or may have broken since the 2007 inspection (we received the report in April 2008).â€

Both bridges are to be repaired

DOT spokesman Judd Everhart did not return a telephone call seeking information for this article. But there has been speculation that Friday’s closure of the Amesville bridge was prompted by an expected increase in traffic with the partial closing of the nearby Route 7 bridge near Housatonic Valley Regional High School. That two-year project, which will eventually reduce the bridge to one lane and cause traffic delays, began earlier this month.

According to a selectmen’s report filed by Mechare two years ago, prior to the last major repair in 1984, the deck of the Amesville bridge is made of wood, which is lighter than pavement and allowed rain to flush salts and sand away more readily.

After complaints from nearby residents about the noise of the wooden decking, the bridge was paved. It has been blacktopped several times since then, adding an estimated 35 tons to the weight load of the bridge’s truss.

In 1984, a superimposed bow-string arch was added for strength. Those repairs were predicted to extend the bridge’s life by 60 to 80 years.

LaPierre and his crew of inspectors returned Monday for more inspections. They spent an hour or so taking photographs and looking at the underbelly of the bridge with Salisbury’s engineers from WMC.

“They had grave concerns,†Mechare said after speaking with state officials Monday.

Anger over detours

After the closing Friday afternoon, cars were stopped near the bridge. Local residents who are accustomed to using the bridge were unaware of the closure and were asking questions. There were reports on this writer’s Web log at tcextra.com, confirmed by Mechare, that some motorists had moved the signs and were continuing to travel over the bridge as usual. Indeed, Mechare reported that one motorist was so angered by the closing that he picked up one of the signs and threw it into the river. On Monday the DOT ordered both towns to put up concrete barriers.

Mechare said fortunately there is space for motorists to turn around on the Falls Village side. She asked Tim Downs, the town’s highway foreman, to put signs up near the railroad overpass, closer to the center of town, announcing that the Water Street bridge, as it is known locally, is closed to traffic.

Rand said Monday his town road crew will proceed as planned with the loose joint fix on the Salisbury side, but that Foreman Donny Reid feels that the repair to the gussets will require an outside contractor. Rand described the latter repair as “not a huge job.â€

Who pays?

It is unclear who will foot the bill for the major fix. Typically, the two towns share in the expense with some of it offset by state aid. But Rand, who as chairman of the town’s scenic roads committee oversaw the reconstruction of several of Salisbury’s bridges, said he is not terribly optimistic about the availability of state bridge funds for Amesville.

“I don’t think the state wants to put money into a one-lane bridge,†he surmised.

It looks like the best way to get from Amesville to downtown Falls Village for now is to use Dugway Road to Route 112 to Route 7 and over the Housatonic River.

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