[7/16/03]A group to urge supervisors to open the U.S. 80 bridge over the Mississippi River for use by bicyclists and pedestrians has been formalized.

The Old Bridge Political Action Committee is “just sort of getting cranked up,” said its director, A. Ray Duncan Jr. of Vicksburg.

The committee registered with the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office in June and filed its first required campaign-finance report for that month. The report showed no receipts or payments of money, and Duncan said the group is undecided as to whether it will offer financial support to any candidate in this fall’s elections.

“We may well just go out and politick to elect supervisors who want to do something (with the bridge),” he said. The effort to create public access to the bridge’s roadbed dates back about six years.

Duncan is retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is an attorney who is doing engineering-specification consulting work. His wife, Cathy Duncan, a teacher at Bowmar Elementary School, is the PAC’s treasurer and is the only other officer it lists.

Both Duncans are avid bicyclists.

Mack Varner, a Vicksburg attorney, said he is also involved in the effort.

“We have a listing of a number of members who are very interested,” he said Tuesday. He added that signing up new members has been “a very easy thing to do,” and estimated that the group has about 25 members.

The future of the bridge, owned by Warren County, has been in question since supervisors nearly closed a deal to sell it to Kansas City Southern Railway, the county’s major customer for using the span, five years ago. Closed to vehicular traffic since 1998, it is used only by trains.

KCS, which is paying about $900,000 in train tolls annually, offered $5.5 million for the bridge.

In a 1999 non-binding referendum, citizens favored reopening the bridge to local traffic instead of converting it into a park as a Varner-led group pushed. After that vote, supervisors passed a resolution 4-1 to get the bridge reopened, but little action has been taken in light of a study showing a shifting pier and safety worries about the roadway’s substandard width.

That’s why the Old Bridge PAC is being formed, Duncan said.

“It depends on what the supervisors say as to who we will support or give money to,” he said. “I want to see something happen.”

The old bridge was built by a group of private investors, with construction beginning in 1928. It opened to traffic in 1930, completing the first coast-to-coast paved road open year-round in America. The county bought the bridge in 1947.