Of common sense & bridges
Middlebury and Weybridge selectmen were right to reject the state’s plan to close the Pulp Mill Bridge for up to a year for renovations before the town’s proposed Cross Street Bridge was built. The state’s plan would leave the town with just the Battell Bridge on Main Street to cross the Otter Creek — a move that would cripple the downtown’s retail district and frustrate residents who already face traffic jams there several times throughout each day.
It’s as if the town’s shortage of bridges across the Otter Creek has been lost on the state transportation agency, even though the town has been pressing its need for a second span for more than 50 years and has been hard at work on the Cross Street Bridge for the past several years.
Let’s hope the selectboard’s message to do the work on the Pulp Mill Bridge after the Cross Street Bridge is in use is taken to heart and honored.
As important is that the work on the Pulp Mill Bridge is dictated by common sense, not sabotaged by misguided — though well-intended — strictures. In this case, the Vermont Historic Covered Bridge Committee must sign off on any improvements or changes to the bridge, which is being renovated at a cost of over $2 million. The current bridge has structural design flaws, according to at least one expert, that should be corrected as part of the renovation. The state’s plan, however, preserves those design flaws (thus weakening the bridge) in order to maintain its historical integrity. Such stupidity, if the alleged flaws would weaken the bridge, would make a mockery of the state’s historical preservation efforts.
A proposal to correct the flaws and construct a nearby educational exhibit detailing the original architecture — and the design flaw that was corrected — is a reasonable suggestion (see story Page 1A) that we also hope will be honored.
What’s alarming, on both fronts, is that the town had to ask.
Angelo S. Lynn
The Addison Independent
58 Maple Street
P.O. Box 31
Middlebury, VT 05753
802-388-4944
Inside Sports
Navigation
Recent editorials
Commentaries
in town bridge
Is it me or does this cross street bridge seem like the worst place to place a new bridge? First, and most obviouly, the traffic problems we currently have in Middlebury would not be relieved but only compounded. You mean to tell me that dumping Route 7S traffic into a already bad intersection that has five points is a good decision? You have south street to the hospital, Routes 30, 125, 23, 74 and 7north traffic already hitting that intersection. That point alone will not reliieve main street and the Battell bridge of its problems. You need to build it further out of town. I can only imagine the traffice after a hockey game at the college or noon during the week. I can't believe that any traffic study would come up with a result that this is the optimal place for more traffic. And now I read that you want to close Pulp Mill Bridge at the same time. I am starting to wonder where the good ol' horse sense of the people of Middlebury has gone.
Of Common Sense and Bridges
Several year ago, I submitted an editorial to the Addison Independent suggesting that the covered bridge be moved and used primarily for recreation purposes. A new bridge should replace the covered bridge; not as a main artery to releive downtown traffic congestion, but to provide another access point to cross the river with emergency traffic. A new bridge could conceivably be built next to the existing structure. Just think of the money that has been spent in the past to maintain this great historic structure. Money would not have had to be spent to construct the walking addition to the bridge. And now another 2 million dollars must be spend to correct design flaws? A new bridge has been paid for many times over. Common Sense? I have yet to see it on any of Middlebury's bridge proposal's.
Bill Cunningham