Disregarding the High Cost, Carrboro’s Town Council Recommends Moving Forward with Pricey Prefab Bridge
At the October 6 Town Council meeting, Sungate Design Group presented engineering findings for four bridges across Bolin Creek, including siting, height, potential flooding impacts, and cost options. Here is the technical summary. The Town Council chose to pursue the bridge nearest Estes Drive first, referred to as “Bridge #1.”
The recommended bridge and paved greenway will increase disturbance to the creek’s sensitive riparian corridor and destabilize the banks of a stream already judged to be impaired by the EPA and feed into Jordan Lake, an important water supply for the region.
The cost of a single bridge is estimated at anywhere from $500,000 to $1.8 million. That single bridge cost does not include the overall construction costs for the proposed greenway itself, including grading, paving, building retaining walls, and removing the existing trail that OWASA provided to the community at no cost to Carrboro.