‘Miserable and frustrating.’ Why this vital Harris County bridge still is closed
A major route for Harris County drivers continues to be delayed because — among other problems — a replaced bridge failed the state’s inspection, turning what was supposed to be a six-month closure into longer than a year.
Georgia Department of Transportation engineers determined a span of the Fortson Road bridge crossing Standing Boy Creek didn’t meet “required specifications for safe load-bearing capacity,” GDOT said in a news release.
GDOT instructed the project’s contractor, Baldwin Paving Company of Marietta, to remove and re-pour the bridge’s concrete deck, according to the news release.
Construction started in September 2019 on the bridge, 10 miles south of Hamilton. The bridge closed to through-traffic in February 2020. The reopening was expected to be in mid-2020.
Now, that date is expected to be in June 2021, GDOT District 3 communications officer Penny Brooks told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email.
In addition to the failed inspection, Brooks said, the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the procurement of materials for the project.
“The supply chain for many industries was affected,” she said.
The quarter-mile project has meant Fortson Road, also known as County Route 386, has closed from Georgia Route 315 to the Muscogee County line. Signs offer drivers two detours:
- 12.7 miles south of the bridge to north of the bridge
- 7.2 miles from Smith Road to 315.
The project’s budget is $3.2 million. Construction costs have been contracted at $2.3 million.
Federal and state funds are paying for the construction and engineering, Brooks said, and Harris County put in $188,000 for right-of-way acquisition. Baldwin Paving will pay for the estimated $200,000 in additional construction work to correct the problem, Brooks said.
“The Harris County community has been very patient during this entire process,” GDOT District 3 construction engineer Keenan Ford said in the news release, “but we know that they join us in wanting a safe, secure bridge that will last for decades. We are dedicated to ensuring that outcome and will take all necessary steps, despite the lengthened timeline.”
According to the National Bridge Inventory, the 135-foot bridge is 62 years old. The notes from the latest available inspection, October 2017, describe the structural appraisal as “basically intolerable, requiring high priority corrective action” for the average daily traffic of 1,920 vehicles as of 2012.
The length of the new bridge will be extended to 162 feet and is designed to accommodate the projected daily traffic count that has grown to 2,300, Brooks said.
Impact of delay
As a mother, teacher and coach connected to four Harris County schools, Lindsey Bader has felt the impact of the bridge’s delay.
“It’s miserable and infuriating,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer.
Bader teaches health and wellness at Creekside Intermediate School, coaches girls soccer as an assistant at the high school and has one child in elementary school, one in middle school and one in high school. All of them have attended in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the bridge has been closed for 15 months, Bader’s 8-minute commute to Creekside has become 22-25 minutes, her children’s bus rides have been 35-40 minutes longer than normal, and she and her husband must wake up 30-40 minutes earlier each school day to help get everybody ready, she said.
And all the extra driving has caused the family to spend double or triple the amount of money on gas, Bader said.
Then, when she gets to school, she notices at least one bus is late for the morning drop-off and the afternoon pickup every day, she said.
Bader said she is angry the failed inspection means her family will continue to feel the impact through the rest of the school year. But she also is grateful the state inspectors caught the defect before the bridge reopened.
“I greatly appreciate that,” she said. “It’s a complete inconvenience, but I’ll go with safety over inconvenience all day.”
