Bridge Work Delayed; Waiting On State OK

PRAIRIE GROVE — The city of Prairie Grove continues to receive “nasty inspection reports” on the condition of the Parks Street Bridge but is waiting for the state to approve a final design to replace the damaged bridge, according to Larry Oelrich, director of administrative services and public works.

The bridge was damaged by flooding in April and May 2011, 2½ years ago, and Oelrich does not expect anything will happen before the third anniversary comes around.

He said apparently the Bridge Division with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department does not talk to the department’s Design Division.

The bridge has been inspected several times the past two years and each time, the city is told it needs to “deal with the repairs immediately,” Oelrich said.

McClelland Engineers of Fayetteville has the contract to design a new bridge and estimates the project will cost $230,000. Workers will remove the existing bridge deck and abutments, build new abutments and then install a precast bridge deck. The project is being funded 80 percent with federal money and 20 percent city funds.

Wayne Jones, vice president and project manager with McClelland, said the long process to get the project approved by the state highway department is typical.

“It is a process and it takes a while to go through the bureaucracy. That’s about as polite as I can put it,” Jones said.

Jones said he realizes the highway department is busy with many projects going on in the state. However, he said the highway department has asked for information his firm already provided and at times, he said it seems the highway department “is not reading our replies to their comments.”

The latest round of comments from the highway department was dated in June but McClelland didn’t receive the comments until late August, more than two months later.

“Someone dropped the ball, it seems,” Jones said. “We are trying to get the latest set of changes to them this week or next and see where it goes from there.”

Carlos Meredith, project development engineer with the state highway department, said the Parks Street Bridge project is ready to go in most areas. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality have signed off on the project. The rights-of-way for the project also have been certified and the project can move ahead in that area.

What’s delaying the project, Meredith said, is that to receive federal funds, the bridge design must meet the latest federal standards. These higher standards require a wider, stronger bridge, Meredith said.

The earlier designs submitted by McClelland show that the new bridge would basically be the same as the previous one, Meredith said.

“With federal regulations, when you are using their money, we can’t just approve anything,” Meredith said.

Jones said the bridge design manual issued by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is about six inches thick and McClelland made changes to the design based on updates to the manual last year. However, he said the highway department wants the city to widen the approaches to the bridge on both ends and that would double the cost of the project.

“The federal amount of money set aside is not enough to fund those improvements,” Jones said.

Oelrich has been frustrated with the whole process to get a new bridge approved.

“But it is one of those things, you have to jump through all the hoops,” Oelrich said.

Once the design is approved, the highway department will request authority to use federal money on the project and then the city will be able to advertise for bids, Meredith said.

Oelrich said the construction itself will be the easy part of the project. He estimates it would only take about three months to build a new bridge.