Bridge repair causes traffic delay

Bridge work caused traffic delays Friday at Hancock Expressway and South Circle Drive in Colorado Springs and may have similar impacts Saturday.

A southbound lane on Circle Bridge above Hancock Expressway closed Friday morning, as city crews worked on repairs.

Officials said the problem was some temporary repair work that didn’t hold up. Workers had been out Thursday night, working on the bridge. They said two decks under the bridge are at different elevations and they had patched a joint on the bridge. However, the patch didn’t last as long as expected.

Workers will resume repairs Saturday, reopen the bridge Sunday, and close the other southbound lane Monday to make similar repairs. Workers said they should be finished late Monday.

Officials said the bridge is safe. It was built in 1963 and is scheduled for $12 million in future improvements, including a new deck and new rail in 2018. That project will take 18 months to complete, officials said.

Aaron Egbert, the city’s senior civil engineer, said 41 of the city’s 441 bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete but remain safe for traffic.

“Deficient means there’s a condition issue and it’s maybe not as strong as it needs to be,” he said. “Obsolete is more of a geometry issue, that the bridge is not wide enough or has other inadequacies.”

Egbert said the city has a 25-year plan to upgrade 77 bridges.

“But it’s only financed through 2023,” he said. “We have $60 million budgeted for that. We can afford to do only three or four bridges a year.”

Egbert said the city’s bridges are divided into major structures 20 feet or longer, and minor structures shorter than that.

“The state inspects the major bridges every two years,” he said. “We inspect the others every four years. If there’s a bridge of concern, we’ll inspect it every 90 days. If we determine a bridge is unsafe, we’ll close it. A bridge can look bad but still be functional.”

Many of the smallest bridges, Egbert said, actually are streets and roads built over drainage culverts.

“Technically, we consider them bridges,” he said.

One such bridge is in the Village Seven area of central Colorado Springs, along South Carefree Circle.

Debbie O’Loughlin has lived there for 15 years and said she had no idea her house was next to a bridge.

“The city hasn’t been out here for several years,” she said. “We’ve had several water main breaks. We’ve been forgotten.”

But O’Loughlin was glad to her that the bridge is one of those to be addressed by the city this year.

“It definitely needs work,” she said. “I’m happy they’re coming to fix it.”