Tag: belmont bridge

More than a decade after a 2003 study determined the Belmont Bridge was deteriorating and needed to be replaced, and more than six years after a company was chosen to design the bridge and whose vision was resoundingly rejected by the community, Charlottesville is again seeking bids to design the bridge.

A warning to any company considering submitting a proposal is on page 3 of the 27-page request for proposal: “One bridge design reached the 35 percent plan stage before strong community participation implored exploration of other alternative designs/concepts.”

That would be from the now-defunct MMM Design, whose plans, for which the city spent $1.2 million, were not approved in 2011 by the Board of Architectural Review and, in turn, inspired a grassroots design campaign with UVA’s School of Architecture submitting ideas in 2012. The winning design of the unofficial competition got rid of the bridge entirely.

Around that same time, a faction led by future City Councilor Bob Fenwick accused the city of neglecting maintenance of the 1961-built bridge and urged repairing rather than replacing the structure that’s the boundary for the east end of the Downtown Mall.

That’s the history the future winning bidder faces.

“We’re going to build upon that experience and move forward,” says Jeanette Janiczek, the city’s urban construction initiative program manager.

Last year, City Council officially nixed the idea of the popular at-grade structure or underpass and called for an “enhanced” urban design two-lane bridge less than half the length of the current 440-foot span that’s bike and pedestrian friendly, keeps the views and serves as a gateway to the city.

The design, says the RFP, should be “innovative, entertaining” and provide an “enjoyable pedestrian experience.” And it will require 20 meetings with myriad stakeholders and familiarity with previous bridge design decisions, the strategic investment area, the comprehensive plan and City Council goals. Janiczek says the city’s goal is to have the bridge design completed in 2017, with the new bridge construction finished in 2019.

“We shouldn’t be starting from scratch,” says Fenwick, who says a couple of things about the RFP puzzle him. “I never would have endorsed two lanes,” he says. “It’s a gateway entrance with one lane in and one lane out? That’s a major thing for me. It’s already backed up with four lanes.”

However, according to minutes from a September 2, 2014, meeting, Fenwick joined in a unanimous vote by council directing the Belmont Bridge steering committee to work with the design team on a two-lane bridge.

He concedes the minutes are accurate, but still thinks the bridge should be four lanes. “The traffic around town has gotten much worse as the McIntire intersection opened as I believed it would, so I will once again question the point of choking incoming and outgoing traffic through a gateway of one lane in and one lane out.”

Fenwick is also concerned about the cost of the bridge, now estimated at $17.2 million, according to Janiczek, of which the city has $14.5 million, she says.

Fenwick, a civil engineer, says he’s had a difficult time finding out where the money is that’s already been allocated. “That sparks my frustration when I go to the city and ask,” he says. “I’m not a rookie at this. It shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

And he’s still not convinced the bridge can’t be repaired, but acknowledges he’s lost that battle.

This fall before the election, City Councilor Kathy Galvin called out former Neighborhood Development Services director Jim Tolbert for allowing “his preferred engineering and design firm”—MMM Design—“to continue work on the Belmont Bridge…with no timeline for work products. That engineering firm went out of business a few months later and the Belmont Bridge still does not have a replacement firm under contract. The project was a campaign issue four years ago and it still is.”

In an e-mail, she says the current RFP is very clear about the scope of the project and phasing. “That tells me that this RFP is all about building a bridge, not just endlessly exploring schematic design options. I am very happy about that!”

Belmont Bridge steering committee member Lena Seville is pleased the proposal is “starting from scratch,” she says. “A lot of people in the community didn’t want a standard highway bridge.” And she says she’s happy so many public meetings are early in the process.

Belmont resident/filmmaker Brian Wimer organized the 2012 community bridge-design effort, which was called Project Gait-Way to emphasize walkability. He’s just back from living in Europe for a year. “When I left, MMM Design was defunct and this was after the process had been ongoing for four years,” he says. “Finally something’s being done.”

Says Wimer, “One of the promising things I see—the original project failed because of bad assumptions.”

He notes that in the design competition, the UVA jury, stakeholders and the public vote all favored an at-grade crossing. And the CSX tracks over which the bridge looms may not be as big a factor in the future, he believes. “It’s a very established fact that coal is dead,” he says.

Steve Powell, president of Buckingham Branch, which leases the railroad line from CSX, did not return a phone call from
C-VILLE.

After seeing innovations in Europe, Wimer wonders, “Why can’t we be the ones coming up with a world’s first? What if it creates great societies?”

Says Wimer, “We have the opportunity for a fresh start, to get rid of those earlier assumptions and play ‘what if?’”