Allan Appel Photo
The iconic Fair Haven swing bridge linking Grand and East Grand avenues will cost $24 million to rehab. To the naked eye it will look unchanged. And the repairs will last just 40 years. So how do you spark community enthusiasm?
Answer: Give us beautiful lights that can change with the seasons. And maybe a period-appropriate klaxon to warn autos, boats, and pedestrians that it’s opening.
That exchange took place Tuesday evening at the Fair Haven School between City Engineer Dick Miller and two dozen Fair Haveners who live near the Grand Avenue Bridge.
Hardesty & Hanover’s Mike Hawkins and Dick Miller.
It was the project’s first information meeting to solicit public comment on the preliminary design phase. The total design and construction is expected to cost $27.4 million, with 80 percent to be paid for by the feds and the state and city providing 10 percent each. The work will be on the innards of the bridge, rather than the exterior.
The only money raised at present, sort of, is $l.4 million.
The design should be complete by 2013, with construction taking place in 2014 and 2015, assuming the money can be raised. The preliminary work plan conceives keeping the bridge open to some vehicular traffic as much as possible during construction.
The design is being performed by Hardesty and Hanover, the firm that the city at present relies on to service its three swing bridges (Grand, Chapel, and Mill) out of a total of 50 bridges citywide. Project Manager Michael Hawkins was on hand Tuesday night representing the firm.
Several times Miller reassured the audience that the design of the much-loved bridge in the Quinnipiac Historic District will not change to the naked eye. “We’re not going to change the character of the bridge. Just keep it functioning so it’ll remain an icon of the area,” he said.
Neighbor Ian Christmann asked Miller if the design will go before the Historic District Commission.
“It’ll be going through them, and City Plan and DOT [state Department of Transportation], and the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers,” Miller replied.
The work will include replacing the deteriorating deck, rehabilitating the substructure of masonry piers and abutments, and putting in new machinery, electrical control, and wedge systems for the swinging of the span, as well as new gates, signals, and barriers. While some work was done in 1985, many of the structural and machine elements are original and have received emergency repairs on a semi-regular basis from Hardesty and Hanover.
In 2000 there was an emergency repair to the turning mechanism. In 2003, a barrier gate was replaced; in 2005 Hardesty and Hanover performed a repair to the end wedge machinery. “We want to eliminate costly reactive maintenance,” said the company’s Steven Harlacker.
Miller said his “inspiration” for this pre-emptive approach — that is, fixing the bridge while it is still functioning — comes from his experience at the Ferry Street Bridge, where people asked him why repairs weren’t made before it had to be closed. The result: The city played catch-up, with much traffic snarling.
The point at Grand Avenue is “to do something for this bridge before something happens,” he said not without a tone of foreboding.
With no disagreement on the essential design, Miller’s challenge was how to get the community jazzed about the project. Local support through attending meetings, letter and petition drives, he said, are essential to secure the competitive federal dollars. “I definitely need the residents to help solicit money for construction,” he said.
So people began to volunteer what mattered to them and might be folded into the project. Chris Ozyck asked that the design include elements of traffic calming. At Front and Grand at the bridge’s western entrance, he said, three unregulated lanes head onto the deck, even though the bridge calls for two.
Rob Smuts & Chris Ozyck.
The Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts said the design will deal more with the lanes on the bridge rather than with the traffic approaching or surrounding.
The so-called Quinnipiac Avenue Re-do nearing completion on the east could help, as could a “Safe Routes to School” grant soon to provide crosswalks and other safety amenities to the west side of Grand.
Well then, Ozyck suggested, how about being creative with lighting? “Adding different colors at different times of the year?”
“You have to be respectful of the bridge,” Miller responded about the lights. He added that the chief task is to provide good LED lighting so people can see the bridge easily.Colored and seasonal lights get expensive, Miller said.
Electrical problem required the bridge to swing open at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
“There’s a lot of community support for” a creative lighting scheme, Ozyck persisted.
Neighbor Dave Park complained about the bridge’s current alarm/alert.
“I find the siren obnoxious,” he said. He suggested replacing it with a less obnoxious and more historically accurate sound. Steven Harlacker, the project engineer, promised to look into that.
Once there’s an acceptable design on paper, then the money can begin to flow, Miller said several times. The expenditure for design has been approved by the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCROG) and is awaiting release through the state. The next step is for the Board of Aldermen to vote this summer to approve receiving the money so work can move forward.
As participants zigzagged through the rain in the parking lot to get to their cars, Miller was overhead saying to Ozyck: “I really need your help.”
“We’ll make it happen. But we’ve got to give people something to be excited about,” Ozyck replied.
This is a gorgeous bridge, but it badly needs traffic calming, bicycle infrastructure and a more attractive adjacent bus stop.
Almost always, the engineers for these projects live outside the neighborhood - perhaps this is why they rarely seem to realize that within core areas of New Haven, only a very tiny fraction of city residents drive alone in a car every day.
Another way to put it, you usually don't see any people under the age of 16, over the age of 70, or with very low incomes at the meetings where the sorts of life-or-death decisions about things like travel lanes are made.