Milton-Madison
Bridge
Cable
stay bridges are
popular designs among area residents
Consultants
take pulse
on community at public meeting
By
Konnie McCollum
Staff Writer
(March 2009) Cable stay bridge designs emerged
as the most popular among residents of both sides of the Ohio River
when polled for their preference during a Feb. 12 meeting at the Brown
Gym. The highly publicized meeting drew a crowd of more than 160 people
to view various bridge designs that could someday be considered for
a new bridge connecting Milton, Ky., and Madison, Ind.
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The meeting was conducted by Wilbur Smith Associates,
the consulting firm leading the three-year, $5 million engineering,
design and environmental study.
The 18 designs presented to the public were divided into three sections,
arch bridges, truss bridges and cable stay bridges. Each design had
views from different perspectives so the public could envision what
each would look like from driving on the bridge and standing on the
ground.
Attendees were given a hand-held electronic polling device that measured
the responses to the various bridge designs, which were projected on
a large screen. The audience could see the polling results almost immediately
on a second screen. The program was designed by Ted Grossardt, of the
Policy and Systems Analysis Division of the Kentucky Transportation
Center at the University of Kentucky. It has been used successfully
with other infrastructure projects in the past.
This is not a presidential election where you only vote once and
go home, he said. This is just the first step.
Using a scale of one to nine, the polling revealed that all but one
of the cable stay bridge designs received an average rating better than
five by the participants. The last design shown that of a modern-looking
bridge received an average better than six.
Surprisingly, the truss bridge designs similar to the existing
bridge received low ratings. Most of those designs were
given an average rating of about three or lower. The arch designs were
rated by the audience as better than the truss designs but not quite
as high as the cable stay designs.
As far as color, the light colored bridge also consistently scored higher
than darker bridges. A darker truss bridge that resembled a railroad
bridge received the lowest rating, at 1.6, of all the designs. Audience
members called that particular design boring and too similar
to a railroad bridge.
This is just a testing phase, Grossardt reminded the audience.
We simply want to know what you and your friends want to look
at. There will be more of these types of meetings as we move forward
in the process.
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Photo
provided
This
example of a cable stay bridge
was the top choice of participants
at a public polling during a recent
meeting of the Milton-Madison
Bridge project.
|
The design team will take the audience preferences and
narrow down the choices to six before again presenting them to the public
later in the year.
Also during the meeting, display boards showing possible locations of
a new bridge were displayed. Attendees were asked to complete a location
survey form, as well.
During an interview prior to the public meeting, project manager John
Carr said the purpose of the meeting was to help build public consensus,
which is part of the requirements of the environmental study. The
preference polling and public meetings give us information that we would
not have otherwise known.
He said the decision to start the polling preferences this early in
the process helps speed things up. The design process for the
proposed Louisville bridge project tacked on an extra two and a half
years. We used what we learned from doing that project to move this
one along faster.
Carr said construction of a new bridge at least five to seven years
away if a location is chosen and funding is available. He said there
is $45 million identified for this type of project already budgeted
into the Kentucky Trans-portation Departments six-year plan. He
also said there is $10 million in Indiana Department of Transportations
Major Moves Plan.
If the decision is made to erect a new superstructure on top of the
existing piers, the project could be completed within three years. But
that would mean closing the bridge for up to nine months.
We are trying to move as quickly as possible. We have a sick bridge;
although, Ive seen much worse, he said. We bought
some time with the 1997 rehabilitation, but if we have to do another
one, we may not be able to keep the bridge open at all during it.
Another rehabilitation project would slow everything down and could
actually keep the bridge closed longer than a superstructure replacement,
he said.
Already, geotechnical crews from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet
have worked to obtain pier core samples from the bridge.
Engineers will test the viability of the existing piers, which could
be used during a replacement of the superstructure, an alternative being
considered for the Milton-Madison Bridge Project. Results are expected
in the spring of this year.
Although Carr was re-assuring about how safe the bridge currently is,
he said if there was a catastrophic situation involving the bridge,
There are emergency processes in place to expedite and solve the
situation.
When the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during
rush hour traffic in August 2007, officials still had to follow all
of the rules and procedures to get an emergency replacement that opened
a year later. The rules were not waved, said Carr. The
situation simply had everyones attention.
He said both Indiana and Kentucky officials are paying attention to
the Milton-Madison bridge situation and have a strong commitment
to the project. If no one cared, they wouldnt be spending
$5 million to come up with a solution.
For more information about the Milton-Madison
Bridge Project, visit www.miltonmadisonbridge.com.
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