Columbus Ave. bridge work starts March 19

PERKINS TWP. — If your commute is up Columbus Avenue just south of Perkins Avenue, prepare to be detoured. Erie County engineers recently accepted a bid totaling $1.5 million for an upcoming bridge replacement project on Columbus Avenue spanning Pipe Creek by Perkins Avenue. The amount came in just under an original estimate of $1.6 million. Beginning Thursday, March 19, Mosser Construction, the project's contractor, wants to begin work. What it means for commuters: Vehicles can't travel through the area until all related tasks end. At a four-month time frame, and at the soonest, crews won't finish any sooner than mid-July. Bolstering the bridge Matt Rogers, the county's project engineer overseeing this work, explained why the bridge must be replaced. "The current two-arch masonry bridge just doesn't let enough water through. It's not big enough," he said. "This can aggravate flooding upstream of the bridge, such as (what) the county experienced in June 2006." This structure was built in 1887. For perspective, at the time, there were just 38 U.S. states. "The new bridge won't completely eliminate flooding. No bridge can," Rogers said. "But it will have the capacity to handle much larger stream flows and reduce flooding potential." Closing Columbus Avenue Columbus Avenue is among the area's busiest thoroughfares. And, when the road does shut down, it'll surely cause much frustration for commuters. "Closing the road will be immensely inconvenient," Rogers said. "It will cause delays and increase traffic elsewhere as people detour. Bluntly put, it'll stink, and there's no good time to close it. The project will impact local drivers and local events no matter what, so our goal is to get construction done as soon as possible so we can reopen the road as soon as possible." But why exactly is this the case? "The current bridge consists of two masonry arches," Rogers said. "As long as they remain undisturbed, arches make great, incredibly stable bridges. Start messing with an arch, though, and all bets are off." He continued: "If we allow part of the arches to be demolished to start building the new bridge, we destabilize whatever part of the old bridge remains. An unstable arch tends to fail quickly, catastrophically and unpredictably. We can't endanger lives and risk the collapse of part the old bridge if we leave it open to travel during construction." There is, however, some good news. "As part of this project, we do plan on installing a temporary pedestrian bridge," Rogers said. "It's much easier to detour an extra mile or two in a vehicle than it is to walk an extra mile or two. So pedestrians will still be able to get through using a temporary bridge."