DEFIANCE — Local officials had hoped an upcoming state project to replace the Clinton Street bridge over the Maumee River might also relieve their problem with a forbidden left turn at an intersection just north of that span.
But the extra cost to make the bridge wider, estimated at $1.2 million, is more than the Ohio Department of Transportation wants to pay.
Representatives of ODOT’s Lima district office told a gathering Wednesday of local and county officials and local business interests they’ll still present two bridge-design options to a public meeting next month.
But the design without 10 extra feet in the middle — which the state says is necessary to allow left turns from southbound Clinton to eastbound River Drive — will be offered as ODOT’s “recommended preferred alternative,” Daniel Kaseman, the district planning and engineering administrator, told the group.
ODOT tentatively plans to replace the bridge starting in 2019. Its current superstructure is about 30 years old, but its piers are now 83 years old and well past their prime, said Jeff Griffin, the project manager for state consultant Burgess & Niple.
“The bridge is safe, but ODOT wants to take action before the deterioration we can see … becomes a real problem,” Mr. Griffin said.
The project’s first public meeting is May 14, starting at 6 p.m. in the Defiance High School cafeteria.
Either design would have two lanes of traffic in each direction — the same as the current bridge — plus five-foot bike lanes and sidewalks of 8 and 10 feet, Mr. Griffin said. But allowing left turns onto River from Clinton would require continuing that left-turn lane as a striped-off median all the way across the bridge, he said, because otherwise an undesirable weaving traffic pattern would occur.
Widening Clinton north of River to add the turn lane, meanwhile, would put new construction too close to underground fuel tanks at a Circle K filling station on the intersection’s northeast corner, Mr. Griffin said, so those tanks would have to be moved.
The wider street would boost the project’s estimated right-of-way cost from just $41,000 to $562,000, while the wider bridge would add $725,000 to the estimated $8,646,000 price for the narrower one, the project manager said.
Defiance Mayor Bob Armstrong responded that the left-turn ban at Clinton and River sends so much traffic down nearby East High Street that the city could end up spending more than that difference to rebuild East High, which is starting to wear out.
Traffic using East High to get to River Drive, meanwhile, is delivered “to one of the most dangerous intersections in our city,” Mayor Armstrong said: the oblique High-River junction about half a mile away.
Ideally, the mayor said, “we need another bridge to the north side” of the river, because that’s where most of Defiance’s current growth is happening.
Mr. Kaseman said the issues with East High and its intersection with River “are traffic problems that are off the bridge” and thus beyond the state project’s scope.
But were the city, Defiance County, or some combination of the two to provide local funding to make up the difference, he said, ODOT might be more amenable to the more expensive bridge proposal.
Mayor Armstrong said that was something he would take up with Defiance City Council and the county commissioners.
Either version of the bridge is expected to take two construction seasons to complete, state officials said, but one lane of traffic in each direction can be maintained while work is under way.
The bridge carries State Rts. 15, 18, and 66 across the Maumee, but during construction, state officials plan to post signs urging through traffic to use State Rt. 281 or U.S. 24 instead.
During its 1980s superstructure replacement, the bridge was closed to all traffic for the better part of just one year, and Mayor Armstrong asked if that was an option this time.
Mr. Kaseman responded that restrictions on construction work in the river are more stringent now than they were then, so the work is likely to take two years regardless, although closing the bridge to all traffic would probably cut 10 to 15 percent off the project’s bill.
Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.
First Published April 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.