Julie Bowers of Workin’ Bridges, the iron bridge restoration outfit that performed a March 2015 site visit and submitted a scope of work report on Hotel Bridge, has done further reseach on lifting Hotel Bridge to the parking lot across Main Street to make the repairs on land. Bowers contacted the utility companies over the summer to determine what actions might be feasable. Her findings to date follow: Moving electric, cable, and phone is doable. The big hinderance is that there is a Columbia Gas service line that runs across the south side of the bridge deck. The line carries gas to Water Street customers. Rerouting the line would be expensive (Columbia gas pays the city for use of resources). Temporary piles to hold the gas line in place while the bridge is moved would be expensive as well. Unfortunately, in order to move Hotel Bridge to land it would require two 500 ton cranes, and dollies, not the smaller crane that Julie used for the quote given at the June 1st community meeting. The conclusion drawn is that it is not a feasable alternative to move the bridge to the parking lot for repairs.

Julie is currently seeking further information from the engineering firm, Stantec Associates, that ran the original load capacity numbers on the bridge. Stantec used heavy tonnage to determine the load capacity. Workin’ Bridges would like them to rerun the load capacity using more realistic pedestrian only weight figures. Just a few days ago Paul Duquette of Stantec responded to Julie’s inquiries and said he will be conferring with his structural and legal team to see if they can change a recommendation with new data. If they are able to rerun the data, fewer repairs will have to be done in order to make the bridge safe for pedestrians. Of course the City, as owners of the bridge, would have to support the plan.