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Bridging transportation gaps beautifully

by Barry Henderson

The Gay Street Bridge unveiled is a wonderful sight indeed. She’s a marvel of both engineering and aesthetics, and we missed her for those attributes and that other reason—easy access to and from South Knoxville.

So when she opened this Monday for the first time in more than two years, the event was worth rejoicing.

Beneath her new coat of paint, the bridge has been strengthened and rejuvenated to the point where we (and our children and their children) can hope to enjoy her for another 107 years.

When the bridge was built in 1897, the cantilevered steel truss design—a product of famed British bridge architect Sir John Fowler—was unique. A few others followed on the same principle, but Gay Street crosses the Tennessee River on the only survivor, making her a national treasure. A Knoxville trolley company paid part of the cost of the bridge at the time she was built, so as to serve and help develop South Knoxville more fully. The Island Home area soon sprang into existence, and South Knoxville was on the way toward becoming the excellent community it is today.

The bridge remains two lanes wide, but at 1,500-plus feet in length, her $15.7 million refurbishment seems a bargain when her historic significance is taken into account. Subcontractors working for Ray Bell Construction, the general contractor, described the stonework in her piers as “unreal” in its sound condition a hundred years after masons stacked it together. And the steel bearings that lent her the flexibility to survive as long as she has were found to be in very good shape, not needing replacement. She got new load-bearing pins, a new, much lighter, roadway surface, and new lighting. The original crosshatch railings were repaired and restored, but the overhead electric trolley cables were removed, probably for good. Her elegant trusses—retained, resanded and painted—were obviously constructed to last by the Youngstown Steel Corp., and by the time the bridge was closed for restoration in December 2001, she was carrying traffic totaling around 12,000 vehicles a day on weekdays.

It took five months beyond the initial schedule and $1 million more than was originally estimated to meet the necessary safety requirements. That time and expense was worthwhile. The city put up 20 percent of the reconstruction price, and the federal government, spurred by Congressman Jimmy Duncan, paid out about 80 percent.

Duncan’s latest attempt at contributing to the Knoxville transportation picture is $30.7 million, earmarked for Knox County in the $275 million House transportation reauthorization bill that passed last week and was sent to conference committee. The Senate version, passed earlier, was for $318 million, and President Bush has threatened, nearly vowed, to veto the bill that emerges from conference.

That would be a shame for this community and downtown Knoxville in particular, as more than $14 million, or nearly half, of the local authorization is specifically directed toward downtown projects, including the intermodal transit center. That downtown share looks good from our vantage point. Voting majorities would probably be sufficient to override a Bush veto, but that can’t be confidently predicted.

The list of projects that would be authorized under the House version includes:

• $10.2 million to complete the federal share of Knoxville intermodal facility funding.

• $2 million to eliminate blockage on Gay Street and accommodate a loading dock for the Tennessee Theatre.

• $6.5 million to widen Highway 33 in North Knox County.

• $6.5 million to widen Western Avenue.

• $2 million for construction on the Second Creek Greenway between World’s Fair Park and the riverfront.

• $1.8 million to widen Campbell Station Road in Farragut.

• $215,000 to improve vehicle protection devices at two railroad crossings.�

If fully authorized, all of the improvements on the list would still be subject to subsequent appropriations, when the real money is finally doled out and where budget realities often put the squeeze on most congressional authorizations.

For instance, the first $17 million for intermodal transit center was authorized several years ago and has been trickling in a million dollars or so at a time since then.

We can count on Duncan to keep on plugging for the projects he’s espoused, but we can’t count on them coming into being immediately.

Unlike the dire situation described to Knoxvillians in the early 1990s, however, we can be certain today that the Gay Street Bridge will still be standing when the 2004 authorizations are checked off as completed. She’s a long, long-term proposition.

April 15, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 16 © 2004 Metro Pulse