Hey!! Hometown News Alert...Jeffco to replace bridge on South Chalkville Road

ANITA DEBRO
News staff writer

Jefferson County Roads and Transportation will replace a 60-foot bridge on South Chalkville Road that crosses Pinchgut Creek.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization recently agreed to allocate $1.8 million from the Alabama Department of Transportation to replace the aging bridge near the Golden Rule restaurant.

County and Trussville officials don't know the exact age of the bridge, but senior bridge inspector Ben Thomas said that it has become functionally obsolete.

"It's too narrow and the culvert design allows for logs to get trapped under the bridge," Thomas said of the two-lane thoroughfare.

Trussville City Clerk Lynn Porter said that flooding often occurs on the bridge after heavy rains.

"It sure would be nice to replace that bridge," Porter said.

Thomas said that planners are in the early stages of designing the replacement and could finish that phase in about one month. Once the design is completed, county planners will send it to the state department of transportation for approval.

Work on the bridge could begin some time later this summer, Thomas said. He estimated it could take nearly one year to replace the bridge.

During construction, the existing bridge would be closed and traffic would be re-routed to another bridge on Watterson Parkway, Thomas said.

Right down the hill from Casa De Possum, you know. And some of you probably thought I was joshing about the name of the creek--it is indeed Pinchgut, and as I have mentioned before, the one further up the Cahaba is Stinking Creek. Horrible sounding names, but both of them, as well as the Cahaba, are actually pretty little streams.

In a way it's a shame they are going to replace the bridge. The old one is narrow and has the short concrete rails with large openings between the columns, so you can actually see down into the creek as you cross over. Go slow enough and little passengers with keen eyes can see fishies and a crafty old heron that lurks in the shadow and snatches one up every so often. I know the new one will look just like all other new bridges--blinding white concrete, 80 feet wide (wider than it is long), with 4 foot high Jersey barrier rails on either side. No more looking at the fish.

'Progress' my eye teeth.
posted by Terry at 7:57:00 AM