RFP Staff
♦ In an email from NCDOT Rail Division Director Paul Worley last week the price tag on an extraordinary expenditure for a local government to have undertaken was revealed. In regards to the planning and design phase of Transportation Improvement Project project B-2085, Worley wrote that the City of Salisbury supported the rehabilitation of the existing Ellis Street bridge crossing in lieu of the new-build alternative recommended by NCDOT. Since rehabilitation was not a viable option that the Federal Highway Administration could financially support, the project and associated funding was cut from the STIP, and the City of Salisbury had to re-pay $171,148.07—all of the planning and design costs incurred up to that point.
Salisbury’s municipal government undertook the Shober Bridge’s rehab after it was struck by a car last spring. The rehab was purely topical and cosmetic. A visual inspection of the decrepit bridge showed nothing was done to fix the age and rot in the bridge’s undergirding. The aging wooden supports appear very old railroad ties–the wood is splintering away and dark mold is present. The bridge shakes badly when 18 wheelers ignore the weight limit signs and take their chances crossing the bridge in the early morning hours.
Currently, the City of Salisbury maintains the bridge, and Mr. Worley was unaware of any movement by the City to resurrect the original project that would replace what is called the “Shober Bridge” by historic activists in the North Ellis neighborhood.
The Shober Bridge, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, in the Early 30’s is a semi-replica of the original Ellis Street Bridge. The quaint eye-sore bridge spans the Norfolk Southern’s right-of-way. If Norfolk Southern were to decide to launch track improvements that required higher clearance, they could just come in and take it down. At that point Salisbury could must decide whether access across the tracks was worth the expense of building a steel and concrete modern bridge on Ellis Street. With Moody’s and Fitch monitoring Water/Sewer Fund expenditures, the City would have a hard time using “Magic Math Money” to build it, and the crossing might be lost forever for emergency vehicles and drivers.
