Thursday, May 15, 2014

Hinsdale Sectectmen see the light: Hinsdale Bridges.

Tappan Zee bridge: ( 58 year old) Construction started in March 1952 and the bridge opened for traffic on December 15, 1955, along with a 27-mile (43 km) long section of the New York State Thruway from Suffern to Yonkers.[15][16] New York State Governor W. Averell Harriman signed a bill on February 28, 1956, to name the structure officially the Tappan Zee Bridge. 







TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — President Obama came to this Westchester County village on Wednesday to use the three-mile-long Tappan Zee Bridge as a backdrop to pressure Republicans in Congress to support infrastructure spending.
The White House argues that unless the president’s new $302 billion, four-year transportation program is passed, current transportation funding will run out later this year, endangering 112,000 highway, port and bridge projects, 5,600 transit projects and nearly 700,000 jobs....
I got s tremendous amount of heat with my wife, daughter, son and grandchildren over my activities at the bridge. There were rumors of divorcing me again. The theme was mike, you are acting like you are nuts. I afraid people will think I am nuts with staying married to you. I didn’t think my family seen the big picture with what I was doing. I got a really lot of shit from my family. I got a lot of shit from the people pass by me near the bridge.
Circa the summer of 2013, I knew all the selectmen were getting a tremendous pressure about the crazy halo man at the bridge. My activities were designed to do exactly than. I gave two presentations to them...the last one being the most contentious. I wish the final one could have been friendlier.

Clock ticks on bridges linking Brattleboro, Hinsdale 
Local, state officials seek to get deteriorating spans onto 10-year plan

I was talking to my lawyer in the winter. I asked him to talk with all the selectmen and the NHDOT officials. He told me he had investigators calling the selectman. The town official either didn’t take the call or could never say anything positive about bridge nut in a court. I was smart enough to know there is more than one objective in a court case.  I was using a form of power or influence...I knew by just getting the investigators to pester them I might be able to influence or manipulate them independent of a court case. I knew they are would be worried about how big this thing could get. They all knew and I told them I am a folk hero or heading to be one...100,000s of people seen my antics at the bridge. I am making a clear image on all of their minds.
I hammer the selectman over and over again last summer, you got to do something more than just sitting there. You got to write letters or complaints to the NHDOT or the governor. Talk to media.  


You tell me, did my lawyers activities precipitate this selectman’s letter.   


May 9, 2014: I'll leave you with one final thought. If you can’t trust the state (NHDOT) to do the right thing (replace and re-nail the boards) in the heat of my activities surrounding last July 31, 2013, how can you trust the state to do the right thing and make accurate bridge inspections (Hinsdale) during the intense political heat surrounding the NHDOT budgets?

By Meghan Foley Sentinel Staff
SentinelSource.co
HINSDALE — Now that a project to replace the two bridges connecting Hinsdale to Brattleboro is back on the table, Hinsdale selectmen want to make sure it stays there.
And that has prompted the board to request the N.H. Department of Transportation increase inspections of the nearly 95-year-old structures.
Late last month, the board sent a letter to the state agency asking it to more frequently inspect the 1920 Pennsylvania truss bridges, one of which connects Hinsdale to Hinsdale Island, and the other, Hinsdale Island to Brattleboro.
Board members made the request because they want to be sure the bridges aren’t deteriorating any further, and that the project to replace them is kept on the N.H. Department of Transportation’s 10-year transportation improvement plan, Town Administrator Jill E. Collins said Wednesday.
The Hinsdale bridge replacement project had been part of the transportation improvement plan since fiscal year 1994, but was bumped from the 2013-22 plan because of lack of funding.
The new draft plan, which covers 2015-24 and includes the Hinsdale bridge, was approved by the N.H. House in March, and is awaiting approval from the N.H. Senate.
According to the plan, one bridge would replace the two spans. The single-span bridge would be to the south of the existing ones, and be built in 2021-22. The project is estimated to cost $45.7 million.
By then, the bridges, which were last rehabilitated in 1988 and are considered functionally obsolete, will be 101 years old.
Functionally obsolete means the bridges are outdated, don’t meet current design standards, are narrow and have height and weight restrictions.
In comparison, the Memorial Bridge, which carried Route 1 over the Piscataqua River connecting Portsmouth and Kittery, Maine, was 89 years old and when it was taken out of service in 2012 to be replaced.
Closer to home, the bridge carrying Route 9 from West Chesterfield to Brattleboro over the Connecticut River was 66 years old when it was closed to motor vehicle traffic in 2003 following the opening of a new bridge next to it.
The bridges connecting Hinsdale and Brattleboro are called the Charles Dana and Anna Hunt Marsh bridges, and efforts to replace or rebuild them have been on-again, off-again since the early 1970s.
They’re inspected by state Department of Transportation officials on a two-year cycle, which is standard for all state- and municipal-owned bridges, Mark W. Richardson, administrator for the state agency’s bridge design bureau, said Tuesday.
His office received a letter from the Hinsdale selectmen, and is preparing a formal response, he said.
“There is much to consider regarding this request, most importantly is the safety of the traveling public,” he said.
They also have to evaluate whether the bridge maintenance crew has the resources to commit to the additional inspections, he said.
The Hinsdale bridges are ranked in fair condition, which is a five out of nine on the system used by the state agency, but are one step away from being added to the state’s red list.
A bridge makes the red list when one or more of its major structural elements has an inspection ranking of four or less, Richardson said.
That ranking means the bridge’s deck or another structural element is in poor condition with advanced section loss, deterioration, spalling or scour, he said.
Spalling is when small sections separate from the main body of a girder, deck or pier because of deterioration in the concrete, he said.
“Spalling usually does’t require a load reduction or posting, but it does indicate that the concrete ... is deteriorating, which can be a real safety concern if traffic travels under the bridge,” he said.
A bridge getting a ranking of three means that parts of it could fail, and a bridge could be closed when it reaches a ranking of two, he said.
State red-list bridges are inspected twice a year, while municipal red-list bridges are inspected once a year, he said.
“We are well aware of the attention that (Hinsdale-Brattleboro) bridges have received and strive to ensure that they are in such a condition that they can remain open for public use,” he said.
Even if his office determines it can handle more frequent inspections of the Hinsdale-Brattleboro bridges, that won’t translate into a shorter wait time on the state’s improvement plan, he said.
Meghan Foley can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1436, or mfoley@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @MFoleyKS.

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