After years and years, the viaduct bridge on Highway 33 that connects the east and west sides of Guthrie will soon receive the desperately needed renovation. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation will begin replacing the 80-year-old bridge.
“You (Guthrie and Logan County residents) have waited nearly two decades for this bridge so just give us a little more time and we will have it open and you will be very proud on what this bridge looks like,” ODOT’s Executive Director Mike Patterson in the October Transportation Commission Meeting on Monday morning in Oklahoma City.
As part of their eight-year ($6.4 billion) plan, ODOT awarded the bid to Manhattan Road & Bridge Company for $17,235,548.53. In total, six companies placed a blind bid for the project.
ODOT officials say construction, on average, generally begins 60 days after the bid has been awarded.
Over the last several months on the west side of town, ODOT has been relocating utilities and clearing area for the first section of the bridge, which will be built to the south adjacent to the existing bridge. Once this new portion of bridge has been constructed, traffic will be shifted to flow across the bridge. This will prevent traffic from being completely shut down throughout the construction process.
“I want to offer my appreciation to the citizens of Guthrie and Logan County for their patience. It has taken a long time,” Patterson said in the board room in front of the commissioners.
Patterson says the bridge, that was built-in 1936 and has had several repairs in the last few years, is structural deficient and the department has spent money keeping the bridge open.
“Just over a decade ago, Oklahoma had some of the worst bridges in the nation and no funding solution for our major highway needs or asset preservation,” Patterson said. “We have seen great progress and major improvements in recent years, but the budget challenges facing the state mean ODOT will be unable to maintain the pace of progress.”
The project is expected to take 560 calendar days, or about a year and a half to complete.
“As we go through the project I would just ask the citizens of Guthrie to have a little more patience,” Patterson concluded with.
The video below was published on Oct. 26, 2015.
Better watch ’em. ODOT “sorta forgot” – for 30+ years – to protect the outer piers of the I-40 / Webbers Falls Bridge with simple and cheap barge strike bumpers. Of course, after the bridge was predictably knocked down by an errant barge, they were “heroes” for “rebuilding it so fast” — at least according to Jim Inhofe and the ever-compliant Oklahoma press. Then there was the Purcell / Lexington US 77 / SH 39 bridge — which they “sorta forgot” was a unique, high-manganese allow structure which couldn’t be welded like carbon steel. So when they let the renovation contract without appropriate groundwork and instructions, the contractor pretty well destroyed its structural integrity forever. And when they tried to blame it on others — a knowledgeable local welder stood up and straightened them out in front of a large crowd of people massively inconvenienced by bridge closure — which just happened to be announced the Friday before the Monday on which a new state legislative session began.
These days – ODOT and its bosses are pretty much shills for the completely unaccountable state Turnpike Authority. As the great Gary Ridley once told me about it all — “WELL, Tom – there WAS a time when we didn’t even have to ASK you what you thought!”