July 5, 2008
Fix sped up for bridge with crack
Span over Queens Creek cited in federal report
YORK -- One of the three bridges judged deficient by the Federal Highway Administration will be repaired soon.
VDOT is rebudgeting fresh money to fix a crack in the Queens Creek Bridge on Capitol Landing Road by next spring. The bridge received a rating of "fair" on the agency's scale during an inspection last year.
"There is a crack on one of the abutments in the bridge," said spokesman Lauren Hansen. "They were waiting for that crack to settle before making any repairs."
At least eight people were killed in the Minneapolis bridge collapse. The Coleman Bridge is in line for new inspections. Scrutiny by the Gazette of the National Bridge Inventory found 15 bridges in greater Williamsburg "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete."
Three bridges received the more ominous deficient rating, including the Queens Creek bridge. One was the notorious Dresser Bridge over the Chickahominy, which is being replaced. The crack on Queens Creek bridge is on the back side of one horizontal support of the bridge. Bridge engineer Tim Felton said it probably began to crack four or five years ago.
Engineers maintain that repairing a stress crack before it has fully settled does no good because the crack continues to propagate and the repair breaks apart.
"It's not harmful to anyone driving over it," Hansen said. "It's the normal type of wear and tear that you find on an older bridge, and there's maintenance that has to be done to make sure it's still drivable for the public." The bridge dates to 1941. Weight restrictions are in place to minimize the strain. For example, while a medium- sized U-Haul truck is permitted to cross the bridge, a tractor-trailer is not. The cost of repairs would exceed $50,000 under a private contractor, but the state will bring that down. "We're going to be doing the work in-house with VDOT crews," said spokesman Harry Kenyon. A 10-inch section of the bridge will have to be removed to patch the crack, but the span will still be opened to one lane. The work should take about a week.
Copyright © 2008, The Virginia Gazette
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