Historic bridge can be saved
But cost to fix Norridgewock spans might be too expensive
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
NORRIDGEWOCK — A new report on the four-span bridge over the Kennebec River indicates the graceful-but-dangerous structure can be rehabilitated and used to carry traffic one way.
File photoSeveral of the options for replacement of the bridge in Norridgewock include expanding the existing right-of-way and could affect nearby historic structures. click to enlarge
But the question remains whether the cost of repairing the 74-year-old structure is too high.
For more than a year, work to address the bridge's safety problems — its lanes are too narrow and heavy supports block visibility at a high-crash intersection at its north end — have been at a standstill due largely the historic nature of the bridge.
Federal law requires that any bridge project avoid affecting historic resources negatively unless there is no feasible or prudent alternative. The federal government would provide about 80 percent of the funding for bridge replacement.
The report by Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers of Connecticut, released last week, is meant to help move the process forward.
It outlines seven alternatives, from spending $641,000 to maintain the bridge for another ten years to $10.9 million to build a new, wider bridge that incorporates the arches of the existing structure.
Other options include rehabilitating the existing bridge for one-way traffic while an parallel new bridge would carry traffic in the other direction. That option would cost $7.5 million, plus $250,000 for roadway construction and $50,000 for traffic signals at the north intersection.
Fixing the existing bridge for use by bicyclists snowmobilers and pedestrians and building an adjacent new 40-foot-wide bridge for vehicular traffic would cost $8.5 million and $750,000 for roadways.
Removing the existing bridge and building a new bridge in its place would cost between $6.6 million and $7.7 million, with $60,000 for road construction.
Several of the options would likely call for expanding the existing right-of-way, and could affect nearby historic structures.
Kirk Mohney, assistant director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, said the report underscores what historians already knew.
"From the standpoint of Maine's bridge building history, particularly in the 20th century," Mohney said. "This is a major example."
The 589-foot structure that carries US Route 201A and Route 8 over the Kennebec River was designed by the first state bridge engineer, Llewellyn Edwards, who later worked for the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, according to the report.
It is one of three surviving reinforced-concrete thru arch bridges built in Maine between 1926 and 1928 and by far the largest.
The other two are single-span bridges, one in Lewiston and the other in Blue Hill.
Despite the aesthetic value of the bridge, the report also indicates that the federal sufficiency rating of the bridge is 17 out of 100 possible points, due to the poor structural rating of the bridge and the functionally obsolete rating of the bridge roadway.
Mohney said the report offers a thorough analysis of the existing bridge and the existing conditions as well as a hard look at some of the options to replace or renovate it.
Alan Crowell — 474-9534, Ext. 342 acrowell@centralmaine.com