Most of Chesapeake council leans toward closing bridge

CHESAPEAKE

At least five City Council members appear to favor closing the Jordan Bridge by Nov. 1, all of them citing safety as their primary concern.

Only one councilman said he is against the closing, unless engineers can convince him that a nearby bridge will be able to handle the Jordan's traffic.

But the case made by city staff appears to have swayed a majority of the board that voting tonight to shut down the Jordan is the right call even if it means longer commutes.

"The safety concern is real," Councilman Bryan Collins said. "I wouldn't want to be the one that said, 'Keep the bridge open,' and then something happens and we have loss of life. That's not a risk I'm willing to take."

Collins takes the 80-year-old bridge whenever the Downtown Tunnel is backed up. He said he likely will use the Gilmerton or High-Rise bridges if the Jordan was closed - as will many of the roughly 7,000 vehicles that cross the span every weekday.

Council members C.E. "Cliff" Hayes Jr., Debbie Ritter, Rick West and Patricia Willis also said Monday that safety will be the biggest factor in their decisions about the bridge.

Ritter used to take the bridge - until the city's Public Works office gave her a tour of the aging decks and structure. She said she will never drive on the bridge again.

"I think that the safety concerns seem very valid," she said. "It is so much more powerful to actually see it than to look at pictures in the reports."

Mayor Alan Krasnoff, Vice Mayor John de Triquet, and Councilwoman Ella Ward did not return messages left Monday.

Only Councilman Dwight Parker said he was leaning against voting to close the bridge. He said he was worried about additional traffic on the nearby Gilmerton Bridge, a 70-year-old structure that is scheduled to be replaced. "Is it ready for that?" Parker said. "I'm not comfortable at this point."

Some council members criticized the city for bringing Chesapeake to a point where one of its bridges is beyond help.

Collins said he thinks "years of inappropriate maintenance" led to today's vote. Hayes said the city failed to make a long-term plan to replace the bridge, something that should have been done a long time ago.

In an Oct. 8 memo to City Manager William Harrell, Interim Public Works Director Eric Martin defended the city's work on the bridge and said routine maintenance was performed ever since the bridge was deeded to the city in 1977. Officials repeatedly said they spent about $350,000 in annual maintenance in recent years.

Martin also defended the use of the b ridge's toll revenue. He said comprehensive annual financial reports were reviewed between fiscal years 1978 and 2008.

The bulk of the money transferred out of the Jordan Bridge fund - about $900,000 - was put toward capital improvements to the bridge, according to Martin's memo. In Fiscal Year 2007, the annual toll revenue was about $1.6 million. And the enterprise fund has a balance of about $2.4 million.

The city has repeatedly asked for money to replace the Jordan Bridge, contrary to some residents' claims, Martin wrote. Replacing the bridge could cost about $300 million, he said.

Frank Lilley, a former president of the South Norfolk Civic League, said he spoke to Harrell about having an independent review of the toll revenue and what piece of it was spent on bridge repairs.

"We're not really pointing fingers," Lilley said. "We're just trying to understand what happened."

Mike Saewitz, (757) 222-5207, mike.saewitz@pilotonline.com