For the fifth time in five years, work is about to start on a bridge over Norfolk Southern’s busy railroad line through Toledo.
This time, it’s the Oak Street bridge near Fassett Street in East Toledo.
And unlike the other four, which were or are all total replacements, Oak’s bridge only involves a deck replacement, which gives David Geckle, the Ohio Department of Transportation’s district bridge engineer in Bowling Green, cause for optimism about on-time completion.
“It’s a re-decking, so we’re saving the existing sub-structure and the steel beams. It’s a lot less complicated with the railroad,” Mr. Geckle said last week.
And unlike when the nearby Miami Street bridge was replaced starting in 2016, the bridge at Oak won’t be completely shut down. Instead, starting Tuesday, it will be down to a single lane, with alternating stoplights governing traffic during the first phase of construction because of the way its beams are spaced, the ODOT engineer said.
Slightly more than half the bridge will be overhauled during that first phase, he said, and during the second phase that will leave enough room for two-way traffic to be maintained. Beaver Excavating of Canton, Ohio, holds a $1.8 million state contract for the project.
“It’s supposed to be a one-season project, with a completion date at the end of October,” Mr. Geckle said.
Miami’s bridge was supposed to be done in one season too, but that was before buried, railroad-related cables were found in an area where a new pier was to be built. The city of Toledo, which oversaw that project, ended up revising the bridge’s design and it didn’t get finished until the following year.
Since then, the city and ODOT have undertaken replacements of bridges that carry the Anthony Wayne Trail, Maumee Avenue, and I-75 over the same tracks. The Trail bridge project started first, in June 2018, and was beset with railroad-related delays that have extended that work until the upcoming summer instead of a planned completion last fall.
The Maumee Avenue bridge started last winter and its replacement opened in September despite an accident in which the partially dismantled old bridge collapsed onto the railroad tracks, causing no injuries but disrupting rail traffic for hours. The I-75 bridge, actually two parallel spans, is in the second half of full reconstruction that began slightly less than a year ago.
The only detour planned in conjunction with the Oak bridge will affect Earl Street, which intersects Oak just north of the work site.
The bridge is just north of Toledo Fire & Rescue’s Station 6. Pvt. Sterling Rahe, the fire department’s spokesman, said fire and rescue runs are dispatched based on the locations of the closest available units, and the global-positioning system that makes those selections can be adjusted to account for closed streets.
“We deal with construction zones just like everybody else,” Mr. Rahe said, noting that responders can take “a couple of different routes” from Station 6 for runs in the surrounding neighborhood.
The Oak bridge also is part of the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority’s Route 14 in the southern part of East Toledo. Amy Mohr, a TARTA spokesman, said that as long as the street remained open to traffic, buses would likely continue using it, even if the bridge work causes minor delays.
Besides replacing the deck, the contractor is scheduled to replace the bridge’s bearings, replace “minimal” pavement on its approaches, and install anti-vandal fences on the side walls.
One sidewalk will be maintained throughout construction, said Gary Stookey, a senior engineer with the city of Toledo.
“However, this is an active construction zone, so for everyone’s safety, pedestrians must use the sidewalk,” he said.
First Published February 17, 2020, 12:22 a.m.
