MONTAGUE — Some drivers are worried that a bridge they travel over every day is crumbling.
The roadbed of the General Pierce Bridge is riddled with potholes, bumpy and cracked. This artery that connects Greenfield with Montague City has local authorities concerned that it is slowly falling apart, and they say their complaints to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation are falling on deaf ears.
“The public is constantly asking us and we don’t have an answer,” said Montague Police Chief Charles Dodge.
Officials from MassDOT said they haven’t set aside the money yet to fix the bridge and are currently working on their 5-year capital investment plan that will likely include rehabilitation of the structure, an $18 million project, according to Jacquelyn Goddard, a spokeswoman for MassDOT. But town authorities say the project keeps getting put off by temporary quick fixes.
When a roughly 9-inch hole, straight through the bridge, appeared in the northbound lane, a resident called the police in late February. Contractors came the next day to patch up the pavement yet again, and noticed more problems. They ended up fixing about 10 other spots and removed and repatched several chunks of the pavement, said Dodge.
This is just one of a series of incidents where the bridge needed emergency intervention over the years. Town officials are still waiting for MassDOT to make good on a more-than-decade-old promise to complete a rehabilitation of the structure, which they say is long overdue.
“The bridge is in need of urgent repairs and must be fixed prior to a serious incident or a long-term closure,” said selectmen’s Chairman Michael M. Nelson in a letter to MassDOT. This is the third letter that he has sent to the state agency that oversees the bridge, demanding accountability.
Police have also received at least six calls from residents voicing their concerns since the beginning of March. Two drivers last spring said they could see the water of the Connecticut River through holes in the bridge. Another resident told the police that the sidewalk started buckling and raising up.
“I challenge you to drive across the General Pierce Bridge with a coffee in your hand and try not to spill it,” said Dodge.
He said that throughout his 23 years as a police officer, he has witnessed many dangerous conditions, but considers the nearly 70-year-old General Pierce Bridge to be a serious hazard.
The uneven surface of the road could become dangerous during snowy or rainy days. The traction of cars’ tires could be impacted, inhibiting braking and potentially causing accidents on the bridge, Dodge said.
“As the chief of police, it is my responsibility to look out for the safety of this community,” Dodge said in a letter to the Board of Selectmen, which was also forwarded to MassDOT. “If I chose to ignore the condition of the General Pierce Bridge, then I would be letting down the very people I have been sworn to protect.”
About four years ago, a national transportation nonprofit, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, rated the bridge a 42 out of a scale of 100. Any rating below 50 would qualify a bridge for complete replacement, said Maureen Mullaney, transportation manager for Franklin Regional Council of Governments.
“The state is aware of it,” said Mullaney. “There is not enough money for every project, so they have to prioritize. For whatever reason the General Pierce Bridge has not risen to the top of their list.”
The bridge is classified by the state as “structurally deficient,” which means it has some structural problems, said Mullaney. She said that the bridge is still safe to drive over and if it wasn’t the state would take immediate action.
The Department of Transportation has a long history of making quick and temporary fixes on the bridge, essentially Band-Aids that are only meant to contain the problem until a full rehabilitation is done, town officials have said.
More than 10 years ago, the state had to lower the maximum weight limit when an inspection found corrosion to the bridge’s supports. Authorities felt it was a safety hazard to continue to allow heavy trucks to cross the structure and shut down the bridge for six months.
Contractors mended the problem temporarily, while the bridge waited for a major rehabilitation scheduled to come two years later in 2007. The weight limit was raised, but rehabilitation never came. Now, nearly a decade later, the bridge is still is waiting for major repair.
The rehabilitation has been pushed back to 2021, Mullaney told The Recorder in June. She said that the cost estimate is a few years old and the rehabilitation might end up costing more than $18 million.
Now, MassDOT officials said they are working on allocating money to fix the bridge. “MassDOT previously approved a project for rehabilitation of the General Pierce Bridge, but funding for construction has not previously been identified,” said Goddard.