Spanker Bridge replacement to cost $1 million
Benton County will be replacing the bridge on Spanker Road, near its intersection with McNelly Road
That road is also known as Benton County Road 40.
The final plans, according to a preliminary schedule prepared by the engineering firm Crafton Tull And Associates, should be submitted in August. Construction should start in December.
When that happens, County Judge Barry Moehring said, alternate routes will include Spanker Ridge Drive, Dartmoor Road and Trafalgar Road.
“This is basically a funnel for people living in eastern Bella Vista,” he said. “These are mostly Bella Vista residents that it will serve.”
Moehring said he once lived in the area, and he can see traffic has increased after standing alongside Spanker Road for only a few minutes. With the number of people who use the bridge, he said, he wants to make sure no one is caught by surprise when it isn’t open.
He said the county will work very closely with the city on this project.
In addition to the bridge construction, he said, the county intends to perform work on the Spanker Road and Benton County Road 40 intersection to improve visibility and safety. These projects will be close on the timeline, he said, but a date for the intersection improvements is not yet available.
Fixing this bridge — which has washed out on several occasions — is part of a series of infrastructure improvements the county has planned, he said. Bridges, he said, are the most costly of these improvements.
“This is a really big project,” he said.
Jay Frasier, Public Services administrator and head of the Department, said the bridge — which was damaged in the April 29 flood — is structurally sound, but cannot handle the volume of water that needs to go under it during major storms. That is because its design — which is relatively short and features thick concrete walls — reduces water flow and has a habit of catching debris, which further reduces flow.
The new open-span bridge, he said, will be roughly 27 feet longer in either direction to open up the creek channel. It will also be taller, he said. Without the thick dividers beneath it, brush won’t clog it. The bottom of the new bridge, he said, is expected to be roughly the same height as the top of the guardrails on the existing bridge.
“It’ll open it up, let it breath and let the water flow,” he said.
The entire project is expected to cost $1,022,704, Frasier said, and the county is supplementing its funds with an Economic Development Administration grant. The county’s expenses, he said, are expected to total $551,000.
County engineer Josh Beam said the new bridge is built to withstand a 25year flood. The phrase, he said, reflects the percent chance of a certain amount of rainfall in a single 24hour period; a 100-year flood, he said, is one with a 1 percent chance of happening, for instance.
Moehring said that, while a stouter bridge is possible, the county has to work with a finite budget.
“We only have enough tax dollars to make our infrastructure so robust …. We try to design for the budget we have,” he said. “We ought to do a lot better here now.”