Indian River Michigan bridge replacement

[blakstr1]

I heard from one of the locals who lives in Indian River that this spring the road commission is repairing / replacing the bridge over the Indian River on S. Straits highway near the Indian River Golf Course.  According to my source, the papers have been reporting that this work at times will make the Indian River impassible which means no way to access Mullet Lake from Burt or vicea versa.  He lives just on the north side of the bridge so in order to go into downtown Indian River he will have to go to the northern Indian River I-75 ramp and use the highway. 

**If anyone has additional informational sources for this area, please ask them of these plans.  I have been sending e-mails this morning to see how this will be affected, but haven't recieve any info as of yet.**

Let's hope this report is inaccurate, at least until after the BFL tournament, TBF state fish off, and our club tournaments!!!

[blakstr1]

Here is an answer I just finally recieved on the issue..well I according to this we can call it a non-issue, sorry to stir the pot.
Blake,
I haven't heard anything about bridge construction screwing up navigation on the river. It will mess up car transportation for a while and require people to detour out to the highway. Even with that, they hope to do construction in early spring or late fall in order to minimize traffic disruption.
I've attached a copy of the latest story that I wrote on bridge construction. The phone number to the road commission and Luke Houlton is 231-238-7775.
L. Scott Swanson

Bridge replacement cost estimate
climbs to $1.854 million

by L. Scott Swanson

The most recent cost estimate to replace the Indian River bridge is much higher than originally projected. Whether or not that delays or scuttles the project remains to be determined.
The initial cost projection to replace the bridge on Straits Highway over the Indian River was $380,000. That cost was based on the square footage of the bridge deck and was calculated more than a year ago. Since that time, the estimating procedure has been revised to include square footage plus known increases. The road commission now has a preliminary set of construction plans and a cost estimate of $1.854 million, which is more than four times higher than the original projection.
Cheboygan County Road Commission Manager Luke Houlton said the cost increase creates several questions. The majority of the funding for the project is coming from the Local Bridge program overseen by the Michigan Department of Transportation. Houlton said two key questions are: Can the program afford to cover the increased cost? And if they can, will they be willing to?
Houlton said he's optimistic that if the Local Bridge program can fund the increase that the program decision makers will continue to support the project.
More local money would also be needed for the project. Originally, it looked the five percent local match for construction would be $20,000. Now it's looking like it will be $92,700. There are also local inspection or construction engineering costs. Those would be rising from $40,000 to $187,000. Houlton said those figures are based on general rule-of-thumb estimations, but on a larger project such as this they could be lower.
Even if all of the financial questions are worked out, there will still be timetable issues. The Local Bridge funding program normally works with a three-year lead time. If new money is needed for this bridge, then it might set the project back to 2010. However if there was another bridge project somewhere in the state that was set for funding, but for one reason or another wasn't ready for construction, then perhaps that money could be transferred to the Indian River project.
Right now, the Indian River bridge project has a preliminary construction plan.
"I think we've worked out most all of the details as to how this thing will be built," Houlton said.
Part of the reason for the high cost of the bridge is an effort to make it not just functional, but attractive. Houlton said that probably accounts for about $250,000 of the total cost. That portion of the project might qualify for a transportation enhancement grant, but that would bring in another set of hoops to jump through.
The bridge also has 20-foot high abutment walls where a smaller bridge would normally have four to five-foot high walls.  Soil samples also indicate that the soil to support the bridge ends isn't optimal. Consequently four rows of pilings totaling 150 pilings rather than a single row of 38 pilings will be required to support the bridge.
If all of the funding issues were to be quickly resolved, the additional planning and engineering work could be completed by spring with bids let in April. However, since the plan is to have construction start in December so that the bridge can reopen by Memorial Day, that would mean the new bridge won't be going up next summer. At this point, provided funding can be found, the most likely scenario is for the bridge to be replaced early in either 2009 or 2010.

[REEL_MAN]

The pot isn't stirred, you calmed the water. You went the extra effort and found that we have nothing to worry about except how bad will the fish be beatup in Burt this year like last year.
Thanks

REEL MAN