A new bridge was recently completed on Caney Creek Road south of Bushnell Corner near Calera and a ribbon cutting was held last week.
Bryan County District No. 2 Commissioner Justin Boone said the bridge is a replacement for one built in 1987 that was in poor condition and that the state shut down about two months into Boone’s term as commissioner. Total cost of the new bridge was $132,000.
Boone said the funds used came from County Bridge and Road Improvement funds that prior Commissioner Tony Simmons had saved.
“I had the money there to replace it,” Boone said. “I hired The Railroad Yard (Company) to do it. I penciled it out and looked at it from my hands building it or them building it and it actually penciled out cheaper to hire it done than it did to have my guys build it which oddly enough, it didn’t make sense to me but I was glad it did because that let me keep my guys working on other projects rather than get us behind.”
Boone said the project began approximately at the end of April and it was completed about two weeks after school started in August.
“It was about a five-week turnaround in getting this bridge built,” Boone said. “We did the tear down. We did the tear out of the old bridge and hauled it off and got the site ready. So, there wasn’t no labor incurred on that other than what we had to pay our hands, and then they come in and within five weeks, had the new bridge built.”
According to Boone, the county received bridge beams from the I-40 bridge projects in Oklahoma City.
“That part of the steel structure was free,” Boone said. “Thank goodness we had that come down through ODOT. That was probably close to a $20,000 or $30,000 savings.”
According to Boone, the old bridge had a three-ton weight limit.
“A school bus could not cross this bridge,” Boone said. “It had gotten so bad that they wouldn’t let a school bus cross it. It was dangerous.”
The weight limit of the new bridge has not been determined, but Boone expects it to be north of 25 tons.
“It should be heavy enough to haul anything we need to haul across it,” Boone said.
Boone said that since this bridge has been completed, he is planning to replace another one once his district is able to save more money.
“I’ve got one more bridge that I’m going to do the same thing on,” Boone said. “It’s probably one of the last wooden bridges I have left in my district and it’s on South Chickasaw Road almost all the way to the river. If it ever goes out, it’s going to leave about five families stranded. There’s no way in or out other than that bridge.”
According to Boone, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation has been pushing the county to phase out the wooden bridges because they are not safe.
“It was a cheap alternative back in the day, but now that we’re getting some of these other funds for bridges and these funds are for bridges only, mainly,” Boone said.
