I never intended to own bridges in this lifetime, but it is looking like this one may come the Workin' Bridges way. The team of experts is ready.
The engineer sent me the inspection reports and this one is tough. They are meeting next week. Bloomington does not want to own this bridge, any precedent for a toll bike/pedestrian bridge to offset the costs.
It has a lot of section loss and rust, all spans need to be pulled to be restored.
Let's hear some ideas. Workin' Bridges would collaborate with another bridge company on this one to figure this huge project out.
Well something better done with this bridge in the next few years. Cracked abutments, rotting beams, and deck that's shot won't prevent this from falling into Long Meadow Lake anytime soon.
Julie there are some on Flickr
When you break it down it is just 5 spans, each 170' long. We can do this. Will talk to Bloomington Engineer next week but the director of the refuge (federal funding) said that anything would be better than the project stopped because no one could get a handle on the escalating cost. He had already talked with the engineer and they were interested, potentially, in our view point. Workin' Bridges doesn't look at it with the extra 0's, so maybe we can collaborate with another bridge company to get this one done too. Especially in Minnesota, the education of restoration is so important, we could potentially reach a lot of people and train a whole new generation on the skills required to take care of the stuff they will inherit.
It is near a city where it can get a lot of great use. any other pictures out there?
This is the old Cedar Ave. bridge.
Typical MN behavior. A landmark historic bridge screaming for reuse and instead the only thing happening is the owner agency complaining about the bridge. http://www.startribune.com/local/west/124463509.html