“It wasn’t designed for the current loads, plus deterioration,” Burr said.
Burr said he wanted to replace the bridge before its condition became so severe that engineers would have had to reduce its weight limit.
The bridge was built in the 1950s when the legal load limit, or the amount of weight the bridge can hold, was much lower, Burr said.
“If you put a board across a creek designed for a 100-pound man and then all of a sudden you start putting a 200-pound guy on it, it’s kind of the same thing. It may carry it, but it wasn’t designed for it,” he said.
The bridge carried more than 3,000 vehicles daily and is one of three east-west rural “collectors,” said Clark County-Springfield Transportation Coordinating Committee Director Scott Schmid. Collectors take traffic from local roadways and move it to the major arterial roads that lead into New Carlisle, he added.
About 80 percent of the bridge replacement was paid for with money obtained from state funds. The county engineer’s office paid 20 percent of the construction costs, Burr said.
The New Carlisle Pike Bridge should now have a life span of about 75 to 80 years, he added.
New Carlisle Pike Bridge was one of several bridge replacements that were expected to be completed in Clark County this year.
Five other bridge replacements will cost the county about $500,000. Those bridges include: Old Route 42 Bridge, Hustead Road Bridge No. 1455, Old Springfield Road Bridge No. 1804, Tarbutton Road Bridge No. 613 and Catawba-Mechanicsburg Road Bridge No. 646.
Three Lower Valley Pike bridges are expected to be completed this year, the largest project the Clark County Engineer’s Office worked on this summer.
Construction was needed due to the deterioration of bridges over Jackson Creek, Donnels Creek and Minich Ditch. A safety study also revealed a high number of crashes along Lower Valley Pike between Osborn Road and Enon Road.
Jackson Creek is complete, and crews are working on Donnels Creek now, Burr said. Crews will work on Minich Ditch next spring, he added.
Rainy weather this past summer, especially in June, delayed some of the projects, such as the rehab work on Folk Ream Road Bridge No. 62 and Union Road Bridge No. 1245, Burr said.
“We lost a month, a month and a half,” Burr said. “The rain (would) flood us out for a couple or three days. We’d pump it out and work for a day. The rain comes again and floods us back out. We lost a lot of time.”
Burr said the bridge project will be completed next year.
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