SOUTH BEND, Neb. (AP) - Work is expected to begin this winter on a pedestrian-bicycle bridge over the Platte River southwest of Omaha that was battered during the flooding earlier this year.
The Lied Platte River Bridge near South Bend has been closed since March. Trees flattened a few hundred feet of bridge railing and damaged concrete ice breakers on the upstream side. In addition, the floodwaters left sand atop thousands of feet of the MoPac Trail, running on the east side of the Platte to the trail parking lot along Nebraska Highway 31.
The bridge and trail closures created a disconnect for the annual Market to Market Relay race from Omaha to Lincoln earlier this month. The runners had to be loaded into vans and driven across the Platte before resuming the race.
The bridge is owned by the Papio-Missouri River and Lower Platte South natural resources districts, and they’ve approved a first step toward reopening it by hiring a contractor to clear away the debris.
Eric Williams with the Papio district told the Lincoln Journal Star that the work is scheduled to start this winter and could cost thousands of dollars, most of which should be covered by federal flood repair funds.
“We need to remove the debris in order for a more complete structural inspection of the girders that span the piers and the piers themselves,” Williams said.
The hope is that any needed bridge repairs will be completed next year. The work on the sand-buried trail remains problematical.
“The trail needs to be repaired and reconstructed, and we don’t have a clear understanding of how that’s going to happen or a timeline,” Williams said.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com
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