Repairs are finally on their way to two Northside bridges closed for more than a year.
Last week, the Jackson City Council approved hiring contractors to repair structures on Meadowbrook Road and Cavalier Drive.
The measures were approved unanimously. Hemphill Construction was awarded a $375,790 contract to replace the Meadowbrook bridge. Utility Constructors received a $214,902 contract to replace the structure at Cavalier, according to city documents.
“We hope (they’ll) start some time in August,” said Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote.
Hemphill was one of two firms that submitted bids for the Meadowbrook project. Both bids were significantly lower than engineers’ estimates, with Hemphill’s being the lowest overall.
Similarly, Utility Constructors was the low bidder on the Cavalier project, which also received two bids.
Construction on both projects is expected to get under way this month.
The news should be welcomed by residents, especially those living off of Meadowbrook. Since the heavily traveled bridge was closed last April, traffic has been detoured along nearby residential streets.
“There’s a lot of frustration and I don’t blame them,” Foote said. “Traffic was (diverted) to streets not designed to be artery streets.”
Early on, homeowners there put up signs urging drivers to slow down.
The Meadowbrook bridge is located between East Ridge and Berlin drives, east of Ridgewood Road. Travelers were diverted to several side streets, including London Avenue, Brussels Drive, Forest Park Drive, and Berlin.
The roughly 1,000-foot span was closed last spring after state inspections showed that the wooden pilings underneath the structure were infested with termites and dangerous to drivers.
With the Cavalier bridge, inspectors also found “issues … with timber piles, headwalls and/or other timber components.”
Timber piles are the wooden poles used to hold up the bridges. Headwalls are the structures used to maintain the road formations around the bridges and to help prevent erosion.
Plans are to replace the wood pilings under Cavalier with a new box culvert. The culverts are less expensive and easier to install than the pilings. Adding the new pilings would require a complete bridge construction, Engineer Charles Williams told the Sun previously.
Meadowbrook, east of Ridgewood, is traveled by about 3,400 vehicles a day.
