City may beef up warnings against trucks|[10/04/07]
Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 4, 2007
New signs with more stringent warnings may go up shortly on the soon-to-be replaced Washington Street rail overpass at Clark Street.
Vicksburg officials huddled Wednesday to talk about what to do to stop heavy trucks from using the bridge, compromised by sloughing slopes beneath it.
Orange signs about 3 feet wide and 4 feet tall have announced the restricted use of the bridge since March, but police concede the warnings are routinely ignored.
“They are telling us that they are not actually noticing the signs as they cross the bridge,” said Sgt. Jackie Johnson, traffic division supervisor for the police department. “We try to stop the trucks prior to crossing the bridge. If they cross the bridge, at that point, the damage has already been done.”
Violators face penalties more severe than citations. “It’s not a ticketable offense,” said Deputy Police Chief Richard O’Bannon. Instead, drivers are arrested and must post bond or pay a $342 fine. Cases go to traffic court and the officials said about five drivers had been charged in the past seven months.
The bridge’s integrity has been in question since a 2002 report showed the structure had shifted about 1 1/2 inches to the east. Money for a replacement structure was included in the $16.9 million bond issue approved by the city Sept. 11. Design work is under way, with creating a tunnel as opposed to another bridge as the favored approach. A federal grant through the Mississippi Department of Transportation for $5 million, a federal railway association’s $1 million and about $750,000 from MDOT’s rail division will be used to repay the cost over five years.
The bridge over a deep gully has a history of structural problems. The bridge’s south end began sinking in the 1970s, and a partial collapse in the mid-1980s closed it for several years.
In their discussions, Public Works Director Bubba Rainer and O’Bannon indicated signs indicating maximum loads at each end of the bridge may be changed. “We try to monitor it every day,” Johnson said. “I think there has been a decrease in the number of trucks that are actually crossing the bridge with full loads.”