Popular pedestrian bridge at Anne Springs Close Greenway collapsed after storm
A large bridge connecting two major Anne Springs Close Greenway trails in Fort Mill collapsed due to heavy rain. No one was using the bridge at the time.
The Greenway Facebook page posted Monday afternoon that the road bridge between the Tunnel and Mill Pond trails collapsed and asked people to stay clear of the area. There are safety signs warning of danger in the area.
The Greenway is still evaluating the bridge area to determine what it will do next.
“It looks like we’ll probably go into a fairly quick demo(lition) phase,” said Greenway company spokeswoman Elizabeth Bowers.
The bridge wasn’t built for the Greenway, but sits on its property.
When York County voters approved the first Pennies for Progress campaign in 1997, it included a new Fort Mill Northern Bypass. Pennies is a cent sales tax approved by referendum, to fund road work. That Fort Mill Northern Bypass road, now Springfield Parkway, shifted a road alignment between Merritt Road and Steele Street that left a portion of roadway abandoned.
The old bridge over Steele Creek has long been visible from the new one. The old bridge has been pedestrian only for years.
The bridge was closed prior to its collapse after heavy January storms brought debris that weakened it. A more recent storm caused the full failure.
“We lost several pilings underneath the bridge, and you could tell that it had been impacted,” Bowers said of the earlier damage.
An engineering company was set to come inspect the earlier damage on Monday, before the recent failure. About a year ago the Greenway put work into the bridge hoping to keep it for pedestrian use another 25 or 30 years, Bowers said. Now the company can help with future planning.
“It’s a total rebuild,” she said.
The Greenway closed all its trails to assess damage caused by flooding from Saturday night’s rain, the group posted on its Facebook page Sunday.
