We have closely followed the city's Magnolia Bridge Replacement Project. Despite recent news reports on the bridge, there is much that the city has done deserving of the community's applause.
However, it is also important that the community be focused on demanding that the city achieves a minimum of construction downtime as well as a feasible construction detour.
Magnolia must always have three connection points to the rest of the city, including an approach from the south that connects into Magnolia Village and, to southwest, into Magnolia at the Howe Street bridge.
The city's design process began in 2002. More than 20 design options were considered. Due to cost, an unfeasible design, safety problems, legal prohibitions and failure to adequately accommodate actual traffic flows, those designs were narrowed down to four alignment Alternatives.
The rehab alternative was rejected as not cost-effective. Examining the remaining three alternatives, rebuilding the bridge under Alternative A made the most sense for the long term.
Alternatives C and D were rejected by the city and the port; the right-of-way necessary to build those alternatives is not going to be available to the city.
In addition, both alternatives C and D were more expensive to build and more expensive to maintain; they increased travel times to and from Magnolia; and they also placed far more of the bridge in the path of potential landslides from the eastern Magnolia bluff.
In late March, the city-without informing the community-announced to the press that a revised version of Alternative A was now the city's "preferred Alternative." This revised version would tear down the current bridge and rebuild a new one in its place. The city estimated that this design would increase the construction downtime (i.e., the time during which there would be no access via the Magnolia Bridge) by about six months, compared to the estimated downtime for the original Alternative A.
Since announcing that conclusion, the city has clarified that its revision to Alternative A is not set in stone, but rather was one option under analysis. The city is proceeding to refine the precise plans for the new bridge, include the precise location of the right-of-way, bridge construction methods and the like. Only after further engineering review and refinement will the city be able to determine whether to proceed with the original Alternative A, or if the final bridge design will be a somewhat modified version of Alternative A.
And only after construction methods are determined will a solid estimate be available for the amount of time the Magnolia Bridge will be closed to traffic.
However, just last week, the city's Magnolia Bridge Design Team assured the city council's transportation committee, along with the Magnolia community-that minimizing construction downtime and developing a detour during construction are both front and center on their radar screen.
We urge our fellow Magnolia residents to take a long-term view of this project. It is a necessary function of government to maintain a transportation corridor such as that provided by the Magnolia Bridge; it's just temporal circumstance that this grand old structure has reached the end of its useful life during our time as residents and merchants here.
The bridge must be replaced at a reasonable public cost, and this cannot be accomplished without some inconvenience. With a suitable detour, this inconvenience will be minimized-and it makes precious little difference in the long run if the bridge is unavailable for 18 months or 24 months.
The Magnolia community should support the city's effort to refine Alternative A, while continuing to demand that the city locate and ensure alternate access to Magnolia during construction of a new bridge.
Steve and Nancy Rogers,
Magnolia
[[In-content Ad]]
