Scotland Bridge Road to close Aug. 15 or after

Maria Flora, The Lebanon Reporter, Ind.
·3 min read

Aug. 1—Scotland Bridge Road will close to traffic Aug. 15 or after because of increased deterioration and danger.

Boone County Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to close a portion of County Road 200 East and reroute residents and thru traffic on an 8.4-mile detour on paved roads.

"We understand this is an inconvenience," commission president Jeff Wolfe said. "But the safety of the driving public is more important than an inconvenience."

Commissioner Don Lawson said during the commissioner's July 18 meeting that the bridge lacked enough stone wall to prevent cars from driving off the sides. Lawson said the road would have to be closed prematurely. The road was scheduled for closure when the one-lane bridge over Sugar Creek is replaced later this year or early next. But commissioners did not vote to close the road at their last meeting.

"You've admitted this bridge is dangerous and it should be closed," Ron Coy, who lives in the area of the bridge, told commissioners Monday. "That bridge is in a disastrous state. It needs to be closed down before somebody is killed, or a car with children in it turns over and ends up down there in the creek.

"Which one of you would want to go down there and help drag out their bodies?" Coy asked. "Why don't you shut it down?"

The 1910 bridge just south of the Clinton County line was built for horses and buggies. It lacks guardrails, and the stone walls that span the length of the three-arch bridge are disintegrating. Guardrails cannot be affixed to the bridge as a stopgap measure, because the bridge won't support them, Boone County Highway Director Nick Parr told commissioners.

Engineers reported earlier in the year that the bridge can hold up to considerable weight, but commissioner Tom Santelli pointed out that other bridges deemed safe have collapsed with motorists on them.

Sugar Creek and hard rains are constant forces that scour the piers and undermine fill material intended to bolster them.

"If you drive across it, you can actually feel where it's losing the fill underneath it," Parr said. "But the bridge has not collapsed because of the arch-type structure." Engineers have reported that one arch has a crack, and Santelli said the bridge probably has plenty of damage that is not visible.

"My biggest concern is that scour is going to take the bridge out," Joe Clark with VS Engineering told commissioners in February. "It's not a matter of if, in my opinion, it's a matter of when."

"Everything has its lifetime," Coy said. "That bridge is way over its life expectancy and you're playing Russian roulette."

Lawson agreed and said, "I want it closed immediately because of the possibility that I didn't close it that one day earlier and someone got hurt or killed on that bridge."

Construction of the new bridge could begin as early as November but could be later. The contractor will have 150 days to remove and replace the bridge that is the county's only bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A federal grant will pay $2.1 million, or 80%, of the new bridge's cost, and federal regulations and environmental concerns may delay the project, Parr said.