Underside of the decaying Broadway bridge near 34th Street South
In August 2007, public works officials spotted a major problem with the Broadway Street bridge that spans over railroad tracks near 34th Street South. They knew it had been in rough shape. But now it had decayed to the point that concrete was falling off its underside and in a few spots on the surface. It was about two weeks after the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis during rush hour, killing 13 people. City officials, aware of the spotlight on bridges, feared it could crumble with the heavy traffic. They closed it. Then, weeks later, they reopened it to two lanes of traffic.
Tuesday, the city council will vote whether to spend $100,000 in local money and $400,000 in federal funds to have MKEC Engineering Consultants, Inc. design a new bridge.
It’s unclear how long that will take, and the city hasn’t set any money aside to construct a new bridge, which could cost as much at $9 million. A decision on funding that will likely come when the council votes on a new capital improvement budget later this year.
10 Comments
So instead of allocating money to build a new bridge in a poor part of the city they are going to just doctor this one up and excuse themselves the reasons later on to build it new. It is very typical of this council government to ignore the needs of renewal in poorer neighborhoods and prioritize most money gained to the rich parts of the city. The people of the poorer parts of Wichita need to hold them accountable, take them to court and charge them with social discrimination of infrastructures.
Why does there have to be a bridge over those tracks? When it was closed before the detour had traffic going over THOSE SAME TRACKS on Macarthur road. It doesn’t make sense to me, can anyone please explain the rationale?
RE: loner34 — Interesting point. I don’t have a solid answer, but I’ll ask when I get a chance. I suspect that traffic flows on Broadway justify a new bridge of some type. It carries about 14,000 vehicles per day. I’m not sure what, if any, problems the city had channeling that traffic to MacArthur. Although the city put in some no left turn signs and increased police patrols to keep people from cutting through a nearby neighborhood, which includes Enterprise Elementary School.
Public Works Director Chris Carrier said engineers will look at several options. One would be having the train go through a tunnel, which would let the city put in a shorter, cheaper bridge (but it would require cooperation from the railroad companies). The current bridge is about 800 feet because the tracks run at an angle under the bridge. Another design concept would have the road curve some — again reducing the length of the bridge (and cost).
Loner34…in case you did not know, Broadway is a MAJOR thoroughfare in that part of the city. When the bridge was previously closed, it caused a lot of problems and big detours for many people. So yes, this bridge is a necessity. If the bridge is NOT to be rebuilt, there will have to be a LOT of road construction to bring a surface road to that area to replace it. Either way…tons of $$, in a poor neighborhood. Wichita is famous for ignoring these areas.
What happened to all that Obama money?
You know, didn’t Obama sign-off on BILLIONS for Infrastructure in the US?
It’s about time they do something with that bridge. I live just north of it & work south of it. I ride my bike to work everyday and I keep wondering when it will collapse out from underneath me. Hopefully when they rebuild it, they’ll add bike lanes to it. the only thing I can think of that’s scarier than the bridge itself is some of the psychotic drivers that nearly run me of it.
Yup, krisapin, riding a bike is scary in this town. I’ve visited other towns that built in bicycle/turning lanes, but that does take a wider street (more $$) and concern for those of us using our own energy.
I too would LOVE to see bike lanes added to all major roads, at the very least. I understand, though, that doing so would require lots of $$.
It has been almost 2 years and the only thing done is a patch job. The only reason it will be fixed is because Broadway carries so much traffic. Otherwise they would do the minimum that they can. Just notice that the south end gets no relief on their flooding problems. I agree that bike lanes would be nice, but it doesn’t make sense to just put bike lanes on just the bridge to me. Kind of hate to say it, but riding a bike on a major street is a accident waiting to happen anyway. To me the benefit of riding would be far outweighed by the loss of being put in the hospital.
This would seem like an excellent candidate for federal stimulus dollars. I am sure that the City is already looking into this, as it is the obvious way to pay for it.
In the meantime, perhaps a little spackling compound on the bottom might help.