Document text
Older half of Pine Street bridge poses failure risk Jackson County engineers plan to close those lanes by May 5 if they can get detour striping done By BUFFY POLLOCK for the Mail Tribune CENTRAL POINT - Fearful the Pine Street bridge over Bear Creek may fail outright, county engineers are closing down the older half for good until a replacement is built. Analyses by state and local engineers determined that the eastbound lanes, built in 1946, are structurally unsound and that imposing weight restrictions would not be enough to guarantee the safety of the thousands who cross it daily, said Jackson County construction engineer Mike Kuntz. The closure may take place as early as May 5 if weather permits restriping the bridge, Kuntz said. As the engineers described it, Kuntz said, "using ordinary bridge analysis and based on the cracks that are showing under there, the bridge shouldn't be standing. "The kind of cracks that are in the bridge would allow for the steel reinforcements to flex very slightly, and you can only bend a piece of metal back and forth so many times," he explained. "Some of the engineers felt the bridge could fail catastrophically - as in, one second you're driving along and a fraction of a second later you're splashing in the water." When the bridge was originally built, the maximum legal load was 80,000 pounds. Now bridges must be built to take 105,000 pounds. Kuntz said that while not all the engineers involved felt the bridge would fail, there was no accurate way to calculate whether the reinforced deck and beams would provide enough support to keep the bridge standing until a replacement was built. Luckily for truck drivers and commuters who use the bridge daily, a potential detour lies closer than a quarter-inch away. The three westbound lanes are actually a separate bridge, constructed right next to the older two lanes in the mid-1980s. A $4.1 million replacement of the older half was approved earlier this year under the Federal Bridge Replacement program and was scheduled for construction in 2004. Because of the partial closure, county officials are looking for ways to speed up construction, Kuntz said. Kuntz said two of the three westbound lanes would serve eastbound traffic until the replacement bridge could be built. Having two lanes traveling eastbound would reduce the chances of traffic backing up toward Interstate 5, Kuntz said. "It's not going to be fun, but it's better than having it fall out from underneath somebody. That's a lot less fun," said Kuntz. The partial bridge closure has some local business owners worried about the likelihood of even more severe traffic delays in an already congested area near the Pilot Travel Center. Kim Cornett, operations manager for Oldland Distributing in Central Point, said he felt the road already suffered from too much traffic and favored weight restrictions over closure. "That road is really our only access to the freeway," he said. "The weight restrictions wouldn't have affected us as much. We very rarely, as in less than 5 percent of the time, carry extended weight. "I can just see a major backup. I go home that way. Between 3:30 and 6:30, it's really backed up. There's tons of truck traffic and a lot of commuters live in Central Point now. "That's definitely going to change the way I go home and I'm sure it will put a lot more trucks at the off-ramp near the Highway 62 exit. I'll probably advise my drivers to try to use Biddle." Steve Plunk of Plunk Transportation was unsure the bridge was actually in danger of falling. "I'm assured that bridge is not going to fall down," he said. "That's just a typical engineer's way of looking at things. If they have the money to replace it, it's going to last at least that long." But rather than worry about traffic congestion at the site, Plunk said his drivers would likely avoid the area altogether. "There are always alternative routes to use. In the transportation business, especially with trucking companies, you run different routes or at times of day with less traffic. You just find a different way." Kuntz said the county would work to put the bridge replacement project on a fast track, beginning the initial phases as soon as possible. Buffy Pollock is a free-lance writer living in Medford. E-mail her at [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.