Good News: The Washington Avenue Bridge will reopen to vehicular traffic on February 15 if not sooner.
Bad News: The complete $7.8-million replacement of the span has yet to be scheduled by the District Office of the state Division of Highways.
Good News: Taxpayers in the city of Wheeling will foot only 20 percent of the bill for the new span thanks to a partnership with the DOH, and the funding already is in place.
So, there are more positives than negatives at this time concerning the future of the Washington Avenue Bridge, a span that links residents from Woodsdale and Edgwood to the Pleasanton neighborhood – and vice versa – and provides the fastest route for first responders from Station 10 near Miklas Meat Market to Wheeling Hospital.
The closure in the beginning of January was deemed necessary following frightening inspection results in the Fall of 2021.
“There are areas where the bridge is attached to the steel frame and those areas had badly rusted and that steel was becoming very thin. So, the work that is taking place now is replacing all of that rusted steel, but there are parts of that bridge that are still in very good condition,” explained City Manager Bob Herron. “After the current project is completed, the bridge will function as designed with enough steel to support the vehicular traffic.
“The bridge was rusting out, but we’re replacing that steel and it will be open again soon,” he said. “Now, the replacement of the Washington Avenue Bridge is not yet scheduled but it is funded and that’s very good news because sometimes it is the funding that is the last piece to come together. We didn’t want to have that bridge closed while the work on Interstate 70 continued because that would have created a nightmare for the people living in that area and for the businesses, too. Now that the I-70 project is winding down, we’ll be working with the state to get the replacement on the schedule in the near future.”
Not the Norm
There are more than 6,600 bridges in West Virginia, according to the state Department of Transportation’s web site, and very few of them are cantilever spans.
The Washington Avenue Bridge, however, is a cantilever bridge and that means the structure only is supported on one end while the other floats as necessary to support the vehicles above. The October inspection revealed more decay than expected and a plan was put into place by city and state officials and elected leaders.
“We’ve known about the condition of the bridge for quite a while and we’re in a partnership with the state to replace that bridge. The state would fund 80 percent of the project and the city will take care of the rest,” Herron reported. “It’s about a $7.8 million project and it’s very complicated because of the kind of bridge that it is.
“But the work that is taking place now is necessary because of the inspection report we received from the state back in October,” he explained. “That report not only indicated that the bridge is in poor condition but also that there was an imminent threat of failure. That got our attention very quickly and the folks in the District 6 office in Moundsville immediately started to develop a game plan.”
Quick Action
At any time, but especially following the sudden collapse of the Forbes Avenue bridge in Frick Park, when the words, “imminent threat failure” are uttered by a bridge inspector, it means there exists a very good chance motorists could plummet to their deaths in the near future.
Thankfully no fatalities and only 10 injuries were reported following the Pittsburgh collapse, but that has not been in the case in many other tragic incidents. For example, on Dec. 15, 1967, 46 people died when the Silver Bridge collapsed under the weight of rush-hour traffic in Point Pleasant, W.Va.
The failure was the deadliest bridge disaster in West Virginia history, and one of several reasons why Herron acted so quickly.
“We immediately contacted a construction company recommended to us by the state and after they analyzed what needed to take place to allow the span to be used a little longer until the total replacement will take place hopefully next year,” the city manager explained. “Then I presented it to the members of city council in early December and they jumped on it right away to approve the $400,000 allocation to begin, and the project began right after the first of the year.
“We do expect the Washington Avenue Bridge to safely reopen in mid-February and we feel very lucky that we could do something to get it back open,” Herron added. “Once the replacement takes place, it will be a viable thoroughfare for many years to come.”
