Broken beam for First Avenue bridge recently discovered

BARSTOW • City staff are hoping to receive grants to fund the replacement of the First Avenue bridge over the BNSF Railroad after recent problems with broken beams supporting the bridge.

    City staff found out last October that urgent repairs of the bridge that Caltrans notified them about in 2003 were never completed. The city hired an engineering firm to fix the damaged structural column and brace and repairs were completed last year.

    Recent inspections have turned up another broken beam supporting the bridge, said city engineer Nick Nichols at the Monday City Council meeting. The engineering firm used for the repairs will be used for the new bridge repairs, because there is still about $40,000 remaining in the contract with Parsons Engineering, with about $150,000 overall remaining in the budget approved for the bridge repairs last year.

    Nichols said he believes the recently discovered damage is new, although inspectors from Caltrans as well as the engineering firm have not been able to confirm the source of the bridge’s problems. Nichols would not speculate on the cause of the bridge problems, but said new weight limit signs installed before the bridge might decrease further damage to the bridge.

    The city recently installed several signs warning drivers, and more may be put up as a courtesy to drivers at Highway 58 and Irwin Road, Irwin Road and First Avenue, and First Avenue and Old Highway 58. Nichols said the bridge — built in 1930 — would naturally begin to wear down as time passes, but said the newly posted weight limits might help.

    “I anticipate that putting the weight limits on the bridge will help limit the damage,” said Nichols.

    The new weight limit signs have different weight limits for different types of  trucks because a truck with more axles will help distribute the weight of the load better and cause less strain on the bridge, said Nichols. The current maximum load on the bridge is 15 tons for a truck with four axles.

    At the City Council meeting, Mayor Joe Gomez asked if the city would be able to enforce the weight limits. Although the Barstow Police Department does not have the technical training necessary to tell if a vehicle is over the legal weight limit for the bridge, Nichols said the California Highway Patrol had more experience with weight limits and had said they would be able to assist the city in enforcing the weight limits.

    The city is looking for grants to eventually replace the entire bridge over the BNSF Railroad. Nichols said the engineering firm is helping the city acquire the funding for the new bridge through grants, although he would not specify where the city is hoping to get grants from.

    Nichols said a preliminary estimate for the cost of the bridge found it may cost $60 million, although it could be much higher than that depending on the bridge design. Nichols is hoping to start securing funding sometime this year. He said that funding would have to be secured before any bridge designs or studies could be completed and that the actual bridge construction would take about four years.