| Work Detail |
The penultimate step in replacing the Grier Swamp Bridge on Long Avenue got underway Thursday and S.C. Department of Transportation officials believe the bridge will be ready for traffic next week. Georgetown County resident construction engineer Kit Scott, who is overseeing the project, was at the bridge Wednesday giving it a “walk through.” The result was a punch list with a few items on it, but nothing that would keep the bridge from opening, Scott said. “It’s a good product,” she said. “We were happy with the work that the contractor did and now we’re just going to get the other one done and have two new bridges to ride on.” The other bridge set for replacement spans Crabtree Swamp near Country Club Drive. Motorists headed in and out on Long Avenue Extension have been forced for several months to detour around the Grier Swamp bridge construction using highways 65 and 813. According to Scott, once the guardrails are in place the only step left is striping the road. Officials first thought replacement of the Crabtree Swamp Bridge would immediately follow the completion of the Grier Swamp Bridge, but Scott says now that work on Crabtree won’t start until the first of October because the contractor, Palmetto Infrastructure, is also working on two bridges in Williamsburg County. Scott says the contract calls for the bridge to be finished by the end of the year. Work on the Crabtree Swamp Bridge is expected to take 60 days so meeting the deadline will still be possible. Also, she said, the detour for Crabtree won’t be nearly as onerous as the detour for the Grier Swamp project. She said the contractor has thrown around some ideas for the Crabtree detour route that are all “pretty short,” but a final route hadn’t been confirmed Thursday. The new bridges are wider than the old ones and their spans are longer to allow better water flow, which officials hope will reduce the severity of future flooding. So far the two projects have been going smoothly with no major changes, Scott said. Work on replacing the two bridges started in April with relocation of water and sewer lines. That phase was paid for with $180,930 allotted by the County Transportation Committee. The $1.34 million cost of the bridge replacements is being funded by the S.C. Department of Transportation. The S.C. Legislature passed a bill in 2012 increasing the sales tax and designating the proceeds to, among other things, repairing and replacing some of the state’s older bridges. There was $50 million available in that account in January. State officials hope to replace many of their 400 bridges that are load restricted, according to deputy secretary for engineering with the S.C. Department of Transportation Leland Colvin, who spoke with the Conway City Council in April. Crabtree and Grier swamps were both on the load-restricted list. They were both built in 1956, and their loads were restricted to 33 tons. The current code requirement is 40 tons. Any more reductions in load limits could have prohibited garbage trucks, school buses and other important vehicles from crossing the bridges. Commenting on the new Grier Swamp Bridge, Scott said, “I think the public will be pleased.” |
