Sometime later this spring, probably in June, crews from the venerable bridge-building company Reed & Reed will begin replacing the Frank J. Wood Bridge that spans the Androscoggin River between Topsham and Brunswick.

The bridge occupies an especially attractive stretch of river as it tumbles through a gorge below a huge dam between two large mill complexes, both restored and humming again with commercial activity.

The bridge itself is a rusted, falling-apart mess, with a 10-ton weight limit forbidding fire trucks, school buses and snowplows from traversing it.

It all could have been avoided had the process gone smoothly back in 2016 when Maine DOT convened a public meeting. Obviously, it did not. The tortuous legal battle since, with the 10-member Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge citizen group filing lawsuit after lawsuit, costing them $132,000 and untold amounts to the public, provides a cautionary tale.

Does it once again show how damnably difficult it is to build anything big in Maine, especially new infrastructure?

That could be the wrong conclusion. DOT’s public information sessions, on occasion, can range from obtuse to downright inept; such seems to have been the case here.

From the beginning, some area residents — not a majority by any means, but some — were quite attached to the “Green Bridge,” known for the paint color we usually don’t notice when it’s on the underside of a thousand interstate highway overpasses.

As one rhapsodist had it, “It’s like driving through a sculpture,” which is a bit hard to see. The bridge is a double-truss design replicated in thousands of other locations, so it’s hardly “unique.”

One might agree, however, that, “It just has a beauty people don’t appreciate.”

In their telling, DOT presenters ended the 2016 meeting before everyone had their say. The microphone was shut off before all those present had a chance; big mistake.

Seven years later the state is still in court, though the project has been vetted and approved by judges and the Federal Highway Administration. Opponents would have to get an injunction to stop construction — highly unlikely.

In the interim, several issues have gotten clouded. DOT points out that the bridge project, at $50 million, will cost three times as much as its 2016 estimate. The Friends cry foul, saying DOT must have been fibbing.

They forget that construction inflation took off a long time ago, and accelerated sharply during the pandemic — or that DOT says it would cost 50% more to rehab instead of replace, a point never credibly challenged.

That means preserving the bridge might cost $75 million. And it would still be inadequate for its purpose in uniting, physically and psychologically, two thriving communities.

The Frank J. Wood bridge is old technology — old when it was built, in fact. A restored bridge would still be far too narrow to accommodate the bicycle and pedestrian traffic that ought to be flowing steadily, not to mention the sight-seeing nooks that will offer great views up and down river.

If anyone who truly misses the bridge wants to reminisce, a trip up the Androscoggin to Auburn and Lewiston will be in order. There, the South Bridge — since 2008, the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge — has stood nearly as long.

It has a similar truss design that’s more graceful and attractive. It’s also nearly 10 feet wider, affording plenty of room for anyone who wants to stop and contemplate.

The Peace Bridge is in great shape. It’s far more appropriate to its location, as the “second bridge” for the L/A downtown, with the heavy traffic passing upriver over Great Falls.

Bernard Lown is one of Maine’s great stories, an immigrant from Lithuania who graduated from Lewiston High School and the University of Maine and went on to invent today’s cardiac defibrillator, as well as co-found — at an especially tense moment in the Cold War — the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

As for Frank J. Wood, he was a farmer who in 1932 came up with the excellent idea of rotating the then-new Topsham-Brunswick bridge so it connected major streets, rather than the mill complexes themselves, as its predecessor had.

By the time the new bridge is done, this long controversy may finally have run its course.

Consider: The Penobscot Narrows bridge on Route 1, an emergency replacement project back in 2006, was fiercely resisted by locals at first. They now love what has become one of Maine’s signature bridges.

One hesitates to predict a similar result in Brunswick and Topsham. But at least the fire trucks will roll again.

 

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