The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
RESIDENTS SAY BRIDGE RUINED HOME
Roadway built up into front yard
A local family says Vermilion’s High Bridge Road bridge replacement project may be good for cars and trains, but now their home is ruined because of the construction.
This year, crews have begun building the new span over the railroad tracks that intersect with High Bridge Road.
The bridge will connect the north and south sections of High Bridge Road on Vermilion’s east side.
It will replace a structure from 1900 that was removed in 1988 due to deterioration.
Vermilion officials talked about the return of the bridge for years, so the start of construction was not a surprise, said Wanda Wright, 70, a resident at 930 High Bridge Road since 1978.
The shock came when crews began building up the road leading to the bridge, Wright said.
The rising embankment grew and grew into the family’s front yard, she said.
Now it sits few feet away from the front door of the single-story
“In general, I can say that I know there are some unhappy people back there.”
— Mayor Jim Forthofer
home Wright shares with her husband, Leon, 78, a Navy veteran, and their son, Robert.
“What really irritates me is, that I didn’t think I was going to be affected,” Wanda Wright said.
Mayor Jim Forthofer was guarded in his comments about the project’s effects because there could be legal ramifications.
Some High Bridge Road residents enjoyed the solitude of what became virtually a dead-end street, Forthofer said.
But it was designed to have a pass through, the mayor said, and he has emphasized it will help with police and fire response times around the city.
“We were pretty sure that we had everything addressed before we broke ground on that bridge,” Forthofer said. “In general, I can say that I know there are some unhappy people back there.”
History and topography
Wanda Wright said former Vermilion Mayor Eileen Bulan and former City Engineer Lynn Miggins were open about details of the project.
The family still has copies of blueprints from 2012 and 2015.
Looking at the earlier plans, Wanda Wright said the family believed the bridge approach would be designed to lead through the wooded area off the east side of the existing roadway, away from their home, which sits on the west side of the roadway.
On the east side, contractors did clear some woods to build the approach to the bridge.
They have piled, graded and compacted dirt on the existing road to create a new up-down slope that eventually will carry cars and trucks onto the bridge.
That new mound extends onto the Wrights’ front yard.
It is so tall it appears almost even with the roof of their house.
The bridge is designed to allow at least 23 feet of clearance from the railroad tracks to the bottom of the bridge structure, said Vermilion City Engineer Chris Howard.
Because of that height, the road must be built up to it, Howard said.
Based on the plans, the roadway at the Wrights’ driveway is five feet higher than it used to be, said Howard, who was not the design engineer for the project.
Based on that, it is obvious the slope of their driveway will become steeper, he said.
“I understand they have concerns,” said Howard. “We all would. But the railroad vertical clearance kind of controls the embankment for that bridge.”
The Wrights also showed wood stakes with orange tops among the foliage of their front yard.
They said the boards are survey markers that they say would allow the bridge approach to be built within 10 feet of their front door on the east side of the house.
How it used to be
Among the plans and papers, the Wrights have photos of their home from July 15, 2016.
Pictures show the roadway a foot or two above the grade of their yard; their driveway appears to be a relatively gentle slope down from the street to their land.
The photos show woods lining the east side of the road.
Due to construction, the family said they have lost flowers to the north of the house and a pull-through driveway that ran around the structure to the south.
Their main driveway has become steep and difficult to navigate, the Wrights said.
Wanda Wright this month took a fall on the driveway, and she blames the project for bad effects on her husband’s health.
Her home is heated with propane, but she said she expects deliveries will be impossible come winter due to the changes to the driveways.
Prior information
In 2015, Barbara Fries, a High Bridge Road neighbor who lives south of the tracks, launched an information campaign to get residents out to a project information meeting hosted by the city.
Fries distributed a flyer with a number of questions about technical details about the new bridge.
She still questions the effects of the $1.92 million project on the city budget.
Fries and Wanda Wright bristled at comments from Forthofer, who earlier this year remarked that residents have commented on the structure, but did not protest it.
“We’ve been protesting for six years,” Fries said.
She said she lost a quarter acre of land and trees to the project and her driveway was moved south to accommodate the bridge.
Eminent domain
South of the tracks, the city filed at least one eminent domain case to obtain land for the bridge.
Fries settled out of court, but Wanda Wright said for their land, her family never had a chance to negotiate with the city.
“Nobody appraised my property for this project; nobody,” Wanda Wright said, although her property has been surveyed multiple times by a Vermilion developer who made offers on the property in the past.
Leon Wright attended the city’s 2015 informational meeting, but Wanda Wright said she did not because she was not concerned about the design being so close to the family home.
“I just feel as though, if I would have known, I would have fought; I would have had an attorney way back when,” Wanda Wright said. “I accepted the bridge because I knew it was coming. But I didn’t expect this.”