The Friendship TrailBridge is closed due to safety concerns.
Deterioration and breaks in steel rods reduce the strength of the Friendship TrailBridge.
PINELLAS COUNTY - Late Monday afternoon officials with Pinellas and Hillsborough counties took the advice of engineers and closed the entire Friendship Trailbridge.
“This bridge at its current conditions is unsafe and should be closed immediately,” concluded the 261-page final engineering report from outside engineering firms Kisinger Campo & Associates and SDR Engineering Consultants.
Primary reasons for the recommendation include: the bridge’s location in an extremely aggressive environment; its vulnerability to wave attack; its classification as structurally deficient; and that the bridge’s design and service life are exceeded.
“The potential of losing effective anchorage at the bearings and the apparent lack of shear reinforcement and the possibility of sudden failure due to the partial loss of prestressing is a serious concern,” the report said.
Meg Korakis, county Communications specialist, said the closing not only affected pedestrians, but boaters also should be aware of the issue.
It is important that boaters stay out from underneath the low ends of the bridge, said Pete Yauch, Public Works director.
“The problems are with the underneath of the bridge where pieces of concrete are falling off,” he said.
Yauch said signs were being prepared and the county was working with the Coast Guard to get them posted warning boaters to stay away due to falling debris. He said the signs would be posted along the entire bridge at regular intervals.
He said boats could still travel the main marked channel under the high part of the bridge.
“Our concern is for small boats fishing around the piers,” he said.
Yauch said officials from both counties would meet after the holidays to discuss the options. He said his department was still analyzing the report to identify the areas with the most damage.
He said $4 million had been set aside for repairs of the upright columns which officials had believed were the greatest need.
“The new report shows a much greater concern for the roadbed itself,” he said. “It’s losing strength from the reinforcing steel. Any one of them could collapse.”
Yauch compared repairs of the deteriorating steel rods to trying to fix an old rubber band.
“You fix one piece and another breaks,” he said.
Yauch said some didn’t understand why the bridge was a danger to people walking across it. He said the problem was not the added weight of the pedestrians or bicyclists; the problem is that the bridge no longer has the strength to hold itself up.
Also, if there were an accident on the bridge, it would be unsafe for emergency vehicles to respond on the bridge.
Officials closed about 1.8 miles of the bridge from the end of the wooden catwalk on the Pinellas County side to the end of the catwalk on the Hillsborough County side on Nov. 6 due to safety concerns. However, the two ends were left open pending the final engineering report.
Cost estimates range from $4.1 million to repair the spans on either end of the bridge that were closed on Dec. 22; $30 million to repair the entire bridge; $12 million to demolish the bridge portion only; and $81.8 million to demolish the old bridge and build a replacement.
Officials from both counties voted to seek funding from the state after the middle portion of the bridge was closed in November; however, due to the current economy, they are not hopeful that the state will be able to lend assistance.
Pinellas County Commissioners seemed agreeable to seeking federal funding, as long as it did not take away from funding for other projects.
The bridge, constructed in 1956, was originally known as the Gandy Bridge, and it carried westbound traffic across Old Tampa Bay until 1995 when a new westbound bridge was opened.
Originally, the Florida Department of Transportation had planned to demolish the bridge. Then citizens from Hillsborough and Pinellas counties came up with an idea to rescue the old bridge.
In 1997, the counties assumed joint ownership and in December of 1999, the old Gandy Bridge became the new Friendship TrailBridge. It is one of the longest pedestrian bridges over water in the world.
According to the Friendship Trail Corporation, more than 600,000 people annually use the Friendship TrailBridge for activities such as walking, jogging, bicycling, skating and fishing.
The full engineer’s report is available online on the Hillsborough County Public Works Department Web site at: www.hillsboroughcounty.org/publicworks. Click on the “Publications” link.
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