Repairs to Clayton bridge to start next year

Local bridges set for repair or replacement in 2014:

*Source is Ohio Bridge Partnership Program, ODOT

The Old Mill Road bridge, built in 1960 in Clayton, is one of 200 bridges in the state to receive state funding for repairs provided by the Ohio Bridge Partnership program.

Work on the bridge, along with 39 other bridges in the program, is scheduled to begin sometime next year, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation.

The 22-feet wide and 46-feet-long bridge and roadway provides a north and south connection from Phillipsburg Union Road to County Line Road, according to Richard Rose, Clayton’s interim city manager and director of Public Safety. Montgomery County’s Engineer Paul Gruner said the bridge has an average daily traffic rate of 59 vehicles.

In October, Gov. John Kasich announced the state would invest $120 million to repair and replace more than 200 county and city-owned bridges over the next three years. That investment was launched through ODOT’s Ohio Bridge Partnership with counties and cities.

Kasich said the money came from successful efforts to overhaul highway funding by reducing overhead costs and improving efficiency at the ODOT.

“I am pleased to see a bridge in our community selected for needed improvement,” said State Rep. Mike Henne, R-Clayton, in a statement. “I applaud the efficiency measures taken by ODOT that made the project possible without draining other resources.”

The Montgomery County Engineer’s Office inspected the bridge on May 7 and gave the bridge a general appraisal rating of 4 out of 9, with 9 being the highest rating, according to Paul Gruner, the county’s engineer.

The bridge’s inventory information, which is included in the inspection report, stated that the bridge’s railings, guardrail and rail ends did not meet current standards.

In order for bridges to be eligible for the program, Rose said the bridges had to be at least 20 feet in length or longer, rated structurally deficient, currently open to traffic and could not be a part of a county or city’s plan to replace.

“The annual bridge inspection report and structural rating of the bridge provided a real challenge in how to best address the deterioration, given the fact that current city funds were not available to replace the bridge,” Rose said. “The Ohio Bridge Partnership program did solve the problem for us. Although we do not have an exact time frame, the scheduled 2014 replacement makes it even better for everyone involved.”

Ohio has the second highest number of bridges in the nation with 44,000, according to ODOT. Texas has approximately 52,000 bridges, according to the 2013 America’s Infrastructure Report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.