[7/22/04]Vicksburg bridge commissioners are again recommending that county supervisors approve converting the U.S. 80 Mississippi River Bridge into a park for pedestrians and cyclists.

The Vicksburg Bridge Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to seek supervisors’ authority to move forward with plans to create a park. The plan was first proposed in 1999, but rejected by 60 percent of Warren County voters in a non-binding referendum and by a 4-1 vote of the county board.

“Because of the previously mentioned safety and insurance problems, I believe we cannot put traffic on the bridge in any form except for emergency traffic,” said commission chairman Max Reed.

Bridge Commission members said plans for the park will be similar to those in a proposal made five years ago, except this time the park would end at the state line.

The bridge is about 1.6 miles long, and the state line is about 1,200 feet from the Mississippi bank, bridge superintendent Herman Smith said.

Possible liability associated with the part of the bridge in Louisiana where there are no limits on civil lawsuits has been a concern of commissioners since the 1999 public vote. In Mississippi, the county-owned span is protected under sovereign immunity, which limits liability to $500,000.

The insurance carrier for the county has refused to offer coverage for the 74-year-old bridge if vehicular traffic is allowed on it, but commissioners said they did not seek bids for insurance to cover the entire bridge if it is converted into a park.

Dorothy Stewart, a longtime advocate of reopening the bridge to vehicular traffic, said she is disappointed in the commission’s vote.

“I don’t think they’ve thought this through, and if they have, I don’t understand their reasoning because they still have the same problems they had five years ago,” Stewart said.

Ultimately, the decision will be up to county supervisors who voted in April to rescind the previous mandate to open the bridge to traffic.

District 2 Supervisor Michael Mayfield, who has favored reopening the bridge and voted against rescinding the board’s previous decision, said he hasn’t changed his position, but will consider the commission’s recommendation.

“At the present time, I’m going to stand where my constituents asked me to stand,” Mayfield said. “But, I’m not going to be completely closed-minded.”

The newest member of the county board, District 4 Supervisor Carl Flanders, is the only current supervisor who was not a part of the 4-1 vote to reopen the bridge. He replaced former Supervisor Bill Lauderdale who had voted against putting two-way traffic on the bridge, but Flanders did not say if he favors the park recommendation.

The previous proposal to convert the entire bridge into a park called for an 8-foot bicycle path, a 4-foot pedestrian path and a 6-foot recreational area with benches and landscaping. The plan also calls for a protective screen to separate the park from the railroad tracks that run parallel to the roadway.

That plan had a price tag of about $2 million and was to be funded by a federal grant. The grant is no longer available, and bridge commissioners are looking at other options to pay for the work.

The bridge purchased by the county from a private contractor in 1947 for $7 million has been closed since 1998 due to deterioration of the roadbed. Commission members said Wednesday that they plan to take action at their next meeting to seek bids for replacing about three-fourths mile of the roadbed where concrete chunks are falling off from under the bridge.