El Paso County officials close rural bridge north of Calhan, consider options for replacement

EL PASO COUNTY Colo. (KRDO) -- The mystery of the sudden closure of a small wooden bridge north of Calhan was explained by an El Paso County engineer Wednesday.

Dan Gerhard, a county public works engineer, said that a recent routine inspection found evidence that the 75-year-old bridge -- called a timber bridge -- was rotting underneath.

The bridge is five miles north of Calhan, on Ramah Road West near the Lemesany Road intersection.

Gerhard said that the county decided to close the bridge last Wednesday as a safety measure; the closure frustrated some neighbors in the sparsely-populated rural community because they weren't aware of the closure, the reason for it, and the time it will be closed.

"Usually, we like to give a week or two notice that we're going to shut something down," he said. "But with last week having the holiday on a Thursday, we got our inspection report back on Wednesday morning, read it and kind of discussed internally that the best thing to do was to close the bridge as soon as possible and inform the public when we had more information."

The county issued a news release early in the afternoon of July 3, saying only that the bridge was closing "for further engineering and repairs."

Gerhard said that the county's next step is to build a temporary low-water crossing to allow reopening Ramah Road by the middle of August.

"We're exploring what the permanent solutions might be," he said. "The options are a box culvert that you could drive on the top of; another kind of low-water structure called a Texas crossing; and a modern bridge. It will depend on what works best and what's economically feasible."

The closing requires a six-mile detour but Gerhard said that he didn't expect it to be an issue because the area has little traffic.

Barbara McFerren lives near the bridge and said that her only concern is how long the closure will last.

"You know, sometimes they do construction here and it doesn't last that long," she said. "You wonder why they even tried. So, if they put in a new bridge down there -- and it's a nice, firm, solid one -- that would be great."

Gerhard said that the bridge is one of 11 timber bridges of similar age in the county, with most being in the north and east.

"We're also going to be looking closely at them to see if any of them need more attention," he said.