$80K emergency repair of bridge north of Bloomington OK’d by county commissioners
At their regular Wednesday morning meeting, Monroe County commissioners approved a $79,725 contract with CLR, Inc to fix a hole in the bridge on Bus SR 37 (aka North Walnut Street), just south of the on-ramp to I-69.
The bridge spans Beanblossom Creek.
The emergency work is expected to be done sometime in mid-August.
Of the three companies contacted by Monroe County’s highway department, CLR, Inc. was the only company to provide a quote. The other two companies that were asked for a quote were Force Construction and Ragle, Inc.
According the meeting information packet, those two companies were not able to give quotes, due to their current workload.
Highway director Lisa Ridge confirmed to The B Square that the steel plate that has been laid over the hole—marked with orange barrels and indicated on the bridge’s approach for drivers with signage reading “BUMP”—is a temporary measure, not the emergency fix.
Based on a letter from CLR’s Chad Reitmeyer, even CLR Inc. will be hard-pressed to fit the work into its schedule. Reitmeyer wrote: “[O]ur crews are extremely busy right now and we will have to find a time to do this work, once all the preparatory work is complete, that will allow us to devote the time and resources that it will take to complete it in a short amount of time.”
Reitmeyer’s letter continues, “I anticipate that we would be able to complete this work in mid-August, prior to IU returning to school, and should be able to work in conjunction with our Bridge #45 that we have under contract with you located right up the road.”
Bridge #45, which Reitmeyer mentions in his letter, is known as Bridge 5300034 in the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) database. It is located on the east-west running Bayles Road over Griffy Creek, about 1.2 miles south of the bridge that needs an emergency repair,
At Wednesday’s meeting, Ridge told county commissioners that INDOT permits will be needed, because the repair will require closing the exit ramp off I-69 for about a week. Ridge said the bridge will likely be submitted to INDOT as a proposed bridge replacement project.
The bridge that needs an emergency repair is #913 in the county’s system, but is known as Bridge 5300130 in the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) database.
Based on the 2022 numbers in the NBI, Bridge #913—the bridge that’s now in need of emergency repair—has a condition rating of “fair.”
Of the 231 Monroe County bridges in the NBI, 146 have condition ratings of “good”, 80 are “fair” and 5 are “poor.” In the maps provided with this article, bridges with “good” ratings are shown in green, those with “fair” ratings in orange, and those with “poor” ratings in red.
National Bridge Inventory Map (2022): Monroe County, Indiana
