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Marco
Island Florida, Marco Island Bridge Repair |
The
Judge Jolly Bridge Repaired by Hurricane Season?
There
seems to be some confusion as to the structural integrality of
our main bride used for ingress and egress to our
island. City staff, at one point told Council Members
that the bridge could fail and needed serious repairs to
prevent it's failure.
The
good news is that Debbie Tower, Florida Department of
Transportation (FDOT) spokesperson, said that the bridge is
not in need of serious repairs and that it needs rip rap
placed at the seven piers at the base of the bridge due to
"scour damage". Scour damage is caused by erosion
due to the tidal actions over the years. The price tag
for the repairs will be in the neighborhood of $500,000.
The FDOT will foot the bill for the project and there will not
be a closure of the bridge as was stated at one point by Marco
Public Works Director Rony Joel. The bridge and it's
driving surface can be repaired at night by closing one lane
and allowing traffic to utilize the other lane. The
repair of the road base and pile repairs are scheduled for
scheduled in fiscal 2006.
Tower
also said that "These are all routine maintenance
projects the DOT does for every bridge in the state, We
inspect bridges every two years". Also stated by
Tower, "We have done routine maintenance and inspections
as appropriate on the Jolly Bridge. This bridge will last
another 20 years with routine maintenance and, with
significant work, it could last another 30 to 40
years."
So,
how is it possible that Rony Joel, Mike Minozzi and City
Manager Bill Moss were involved in a conference call with a
DOT project manager who stated that the bridge needed critical
repairs to the tune of $4 million to $5 million? This is a big
deviation from the $500,000. for the non-critical
repair. According to Joel, the information was based on
a report from the Department of Transportation study performed
by Ventry Engineering. Ventry was hired to study options for
adding an additional two-lanes to the Jolley's existing two
lanes to alleviate the lane reduction problem that currently
exists during "season".
How
will the repairs affect the addition of additional lanes down
the road (no pun intended)? Or, will the City of Marco take
over the bridge to prevent good money thrown to bad, tear the
aged 1969 structure down, and start from scratch with a nice
four lane bridge with a toll to pay the price? What is
your opinion? The DOT states that the bridge is designed
for a 50 year lifespan, and with maintenance, the bridge and
it's useful life can be extended for many more years. It
is my opinion that we should bite the bullet and tear the old
bride down, use the concrete rubble for a artificial reef out
in the Gulf of Mexico, and build a new bridge with six lanes,
to meet all future needs of the island. Put up a toll
that would not apply to anyone with a Marco Island address,
and wallla, we have a new state of the art Marco Island
Bridge!
Lets
look at the numbers....In
peak season, according to the DOT, the bridge is used by
35,000 vehicles per day. In off season the bridge sees
about 25,000 per day. I do not have any information, nor
does anyone else relating to what percentage of the traffic is
"local" however, I think we would be safe to say
that perhaps half of the traffic is local residents. So,
lets take the off season number of 25,000 vehicles per day and
cut that number in half, which is 12,500 vehicles per
day. Lets say the toll is $2.50 per vehicle.
Doing the math, that works out to $31,250.00 per day, and if
you compute that to an annual basis, $11,406,250.00 per
year! Hmmm, how much does a new bridge cost? The
people that complain about having to pay a toll to get on the
island could take the Goodland Bridge. What is the
process of taking a bridge from the DOT? I have no idea,
but hey, everyone will always want to visit Marco Island, and
after the bridge is paid for, we could use the money to pay
for other improvements on our lovely sub tropical
island. Just a thought, perhaps a reality.
We will leave the decision making to our elected City
officials.
Story
by Christopher Halaschak
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