By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Ellis County Commission Tuesday decided to keep the 12th Street bridge open and convert a bridge on 100th Avenue to a culvert.
Ellis County Public Works Director Brendan Mackey presented the commission earlier this month with a proposal to close the deteriorating 12th Street bridge on the western edge of Hays. Mackey hoped grant funds received from the closure could be used to repair a bridge over the Saline River in northern Ellis County.
Mackey said the county has had several engineers over several years look at the bridge and recommend closure.
However, several county residents expressed concerns about closing the 12th Street bridge. Among them was local attorney John Bird.
Bird, who lives west of the bridge, brought up several concerns to the commission, including the ability of emergency vehicles to get across the railroad tracks in the event of a train derailment and the amount of traffic that uses the bridge.
Bird was at the commission meeting Tuesday and thanked the commission for choosing not to close the bridge at this time.
Instead, Mackey recommended that the load limit be reduced on the bridge, patching be completed, and work done on the approaches to the bridge. The cost would be $20,000 to $25,000.
"We are just going to put a band-aid on it to get our stuff in line," Commissioner Neal Younger said.
Mackey said this would not repair the bridge but only make travel for those who use the bridge a little smoother.
Mackey estimated the bridge replacement would cost more than $1 million.
Commission members acknowledged the bridge still may eventually have to be closed, but this will give them a few years to evaluate options on what to do with the bridge.
The 12th Street bridge is one of 11 bridges in the county that are rated in poor condition.
Mackey said the 100th Street bridge would be replaced by a culvert or concrete box, and the county could apply for the $50,000 in grants as a result of this work.
The cost to replace the 100th Avenue bridge with the culvert or concrete box would be $20,000 and $35,000, he said. The 100th Avenue crossing would still be able to carry traffic, but it would no longer be classified as a bridge.
The stream channel has changed, and less water is passing under the roadway. That crossing will only be closed to traffic during construction.
Commissioner Michael Berges said the 12th Street bridge had been ignored. Choosing the 100th Avenue bridge for closure this year will allow the commission to explore other options for the 12th Street bridge, he said.
The current commission has worked in recent years to set aside money in a special highway and road and bridge fund to pay to replace the aging county infrastructure.
"We know our system has got run down," Younger said. "We need to get on the right foot again. We know that going to take a lot of funding and finger-crossing hoping we can get some of these grants."
Bridge grants are in part based on population concentration in the area. Ellis County's population concentration is only 15 percent.