Meeting about bridge offers little hope for fast reopening

Isaac Hughes of Zion Hill makes a point to consulting engineer Phil Logsdon and others at Thursday's meeting.

By Sarah Ladd

University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media

A consulting board’s meeting Thursday offered no solutions for a quick reopening of the Weisenberger Mill Bridge, but a small glimmer of hope that it could be rebuilt next year, not in 2020.

The meeting at Northside Elementary School was for people who had signed up to be consulting parties on the project, required under federal environmental and historic-preservation laws. It was also open to observers, most of whom were more concerned about the need to reopen the bridge, which has been closed since July 1, 2016, isolating the Zion Hill community.     

Casey Smith, project manager for the state Transportation Cabinet, opened the meeting by addressing concerns the community expressed in a meeting at the bridge Tuesday, including the feeling that its voices are not being heard. “It hurts to hear that,” he said. “Despite all the emotion and frustration, I find this process is actually working.”

Craig Potts, the state historic-preservation officer, said the process has already resulted in giving residents of the area the alternative they wanted – a one-lane bridge like the old one, for fear that a two-lane span would encourage more speeding and heavy truck traffic.

Federal Highway Administration environmental specialist
Eric Rothermel listened at the meeting. (Photo by Sarah Ladd)

Potts said the Federal Highway Administration “said it didn’t build one-lane bridges,” for safety reasons, but FhWA Environmental Protection Specialist Eric Rothermel, who joined the project around a year ago, was able to get his superiors to accept the single-lane alternative. (Rothermel declined to comment afterward, saying he wasn’t allowed to speak to news media.)

Potts said, “We really benefited. . . . Otherwise we probably would have a two-lane alternative underway right now.” That was the plan when the bridge was closed for safety reasons.

Phil Logsdon, senior project manager at H.W. Lochner, the Lexington engineering firm advising the state, said part of the meeting’s purpose was to eliminate the two-lane alternative. He said it can’t be officially eliminated until a decision is made, but the community has made it clear that it wants the single-lane alternative.

The conversation turned to a debate over whether a single-lane bridge could be 14 feet wide, as opposed to the current 12-foot plan, to accommodate more farm machinery. Engineers at the meeting said both options should have the same weight limit of 40 tons.

Magistrate Chad Wallace of Scott County’s Third District asked if making it two feet wider would delay the process. “The general feel is to get something open as soon as possible,” he said.

Logsdon was unsure, but several members of the state's project team – 18 were in attendance – said consideration of the 14-foot alternative was unlikely to delay the process.

Wallace asked the question likely on the minds of most: “How soon do we get a bridge?”

Mapquest map, adapted, shows how the bridge closure has isolated Zion Hill.

The bridge is not scheduled to be completed until 2020, but Logsdon and state officials outlined a scenario that might get it done next year: After the official comment period ends July 9, if support for a one-lane bridge remains strong, he said, “It’s going to make it a lot easier for the Transportation Cabinet to make that decision.” He said the project timetable calls for FHwA to approve the project’s environmental document in December, after which the state could start acquiring property easements it needs for construction devices. The federal fiscal year does not begin until Oct. 1, 2019, but if money became available before then due to delays in other federally funded projects, “cabinet leadership” could move up the schedule and seek bids.

Later, Isaac Hughes of Zion Hill asked who heads the cabinet, and was told that is Secretary Greg Thomas. Hughes said the process he saw at the meeting won’t get a bridge built soon. At Tuesday’s meeting, he voiced concern that the process is focused more on the design of the bridge than its speedy reopening.

After the meeting, Hughes said his concerns have not been resolved. “We’re still looking at the process,” he said. “It’s about the process, not the people.”

Hughes said other communities nearby have repaired bridges in a speedy manner. “Those communities had horse industry money,” he said, and Zion Hill doesn’t produce much revenue, so there is little incentive to repair the bridge.

“It’s about land value, not life value,” he said, echoing his concerns from Tuesday, and said he feels the community means nothing to those working on the bridge repairs.

Soon after the meeting started, the cabinet’s environmental-analysis director, Danny Peake, told the crowd that the process “probably seems cumbersome, slow and painful,” but has seen “a large government agency” change its plans in response to public concern.

About halfway through the meeting, Ed Courtney, part of whose property would be used for a construction easement, said, “They built that bridge probably in less time than you all been talking about it.”

Project Manager Casey Smith, right, talks with mill owner Mac Weisenberger, who voiced concern that the new bridge abutments would reduce the width of South Elkhorn Creek by two feet, which he said would worsen flooding. Smith said state engineers looked at that, and “They did not see a significant rise out of it.” Weisenberger asked Smith if he had seen the creek in flood; Smith said he had seen pictures from Weisenberger. At left is state historic preservation officer Craig Potts.