Governments at an impasse over closed bridge at North Fourth Avenue East

Irritated by what he claims were false statements by an elected county official, Newton Mayor Mike Hansen on April 4 addressed comments made about the city and a long out-of-service bridge east of town. Jasper County Supervisor Brandon Talsma told Newton News the two later talked out the “misunderstanding.”

Although Hansen did not reveal the name of the county official he was referring to at the end of last week’s council meeting, Newton News determined it was Talsma, who had replied to a number of Facebook comments on a March 29 post about Jasper County road projects. Someone brought up the bridge.

The city and county share ownership of the North Fourth Avenue East bridge, which has been inaccessible for the past several years. Residents who live on the other side must take a short, 1.5-mile detour to reach their homes. A citizen asked for an update on the closed bridge, prompting a response from Talsma.

“That bridge was removed from the program (four) years ago and is not currently programmed,” Talsma said of the county engineer’s five-year program. “Jasper County has multiple bridges out resultingin people and farmers having to take a much longer detour that the county felt needed to be prioritized.”

Another citizen responded, claiming the city had the money to replace its half of the project but the county did not.

“Actually years ago the county had the money, the city did not,” Talsma said. “Then after multiple years of the same thing the county removed it from our program because there are bridges that are resulting in much longer detours than the one on (North Fourth Avenue East) does.”

Hansen told council members it was “absolutely false” to say the City of Newton did not have the money to spend on the bridge. He later expanded on that statement in a follow-up interview and said the narrative that one entity had money while the other entity did not is not true.

Still, there was another issue about the bridge which compounded onto the comments made by Talsma: the “bridge out ahead” sign.

Hansen said he found out a week before the council meeting that there was a change made to signage near the bridge. The “bridge out ahead” sign, he said, was replaced by a “dead end” designation. However, Newton News traveled to the site on April 5 and found no “dead end” sign or “bridge out ahead” sign.

Newton Public Works Director Jody Rhone said the city did not remove the sign. Jasper County Engineer Mike Frietsch is not sure if his staff removed or replaced it either. Regardless, there is nothing telling motorists that North Fourth Avenue East cannot be driven through, other than the cement barricades.

Neither Rhone nor Hansen indicated they had seen the “dead end” signs in-person. Rhone later told Newton News that a “dead end” sign would not be viable at the North Fourth Avenue East bridge to begin with. He claimed it needed an outlet for firetrucks or maintenance vehicles to adequately turnaround in.

Because of the bridge’s shared ownership, Hansen claimed anything done to that structure needs approval from both the city and the county.

“There’s no doggone reason why we weren’t consulted about this before any changes or anything happened,” Hansen said. “…Now I’m not saying that the resolution might be a new bridge there. What I am saying is they don’t have a right to decide what the future of that area is without us participating as well.”

BRIDGES CAN GET COMPLICATED & EXPENSIVE

Part of the reason the bridge continues to be a hassle for both governments is the added approval the project needs from state entities. In addition to the Iowa Department of Transportation’s approval, the design needs to be signed off by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Hansen and Talsma have both acknowledged this extra step poses another level of difficulty in getting the project off the ground. IDNR does not want the bridge to interrupt the natural flow of stormwater and drainage water. Hansen said the city has encountered similar challenges in the past.

“We’ve done this type of project at South 12th Avenue West when we changed a bridge and we installed box culverts,” Hansen said. “In order to pass the regulations we had to do the required amount of culvert, have that installed, so that it would pass and not impede the stormwater.”

From what the county learned of its past attempts to seek an approved design, the bridge needed to be expanded to twice its size. Doing so costs more money.

Hansen said he and Talsma had a “productive conversation” after voicing his concerns about the bridge last week. Talsma was under the impression a new bridge would cost at least $1 million, but Hansen assured him the city’s engineers could design a cheaper, IDNR-approved bridge for $400,000.

Of course, those are conservative estimates. But Hansen said the bridge would still meet the environmental and length requirements and not cost the city and county nearly $500,000 each to replace it. Both Hansen and Talsma agree something needs to be done.

Rhone said the city’s engineers have looked at constructing a corrugated culvert rather than a full bridge. Still, it would take months of work to get an actual design for the North Fourth Avenue East bridge, let alone one that will satisfy the IDNR and not cause upstream flooding issues.

Oftentimes the county engineer lays out which bridges could be replaced in a five-year plan. What Talsma learned when he got elected was the plan was often used to pacify people for road projects and bridges. Some projects would continuously get “kicked down the road,” Talsma said.

“If we’re not going to fix it immediately, then let’s just take it off,” Talsma said. “…I think something does need to get done, whether that’s replacing the bridge or closing it and taking it out permanently. I don’t think it’s right to have the citizens who live back there kind of in limbo every year.”

Frietsch and Talsma welcome a more economical solution, but the county engineer is not yet convinced of the city’s plan. Frietsch said two of the county’s federally funded bridge replacements are coming in at almost $7,400 per foot. When bridges get to be about 100 feet long, the costs — especially now — add up quickly.

“That was last September. So you could only imagine what the costs are now,” Frietsch said. “Concrete’s up. Steel’s up. Everything’s up. In order to replace that bridge there you’re probably talking an estimate of at least three-quarters of a million dollars ($750,000), if not approaching more.”

More than likely, Frietsch added, the county will have to use federal aid money, rather than local funds, to pay for the bridge. Frietsch has his doubts the city engineers’ designs will be approved by the IDNR. If it does, he suspects the governments will have to work with property owners upstream.

“They may be impacted by the floodplain level increase,” Frietsch said. “You might have spent $400,000 on the structure, but on the front end to try and accomplish that you’re going to spend a bunch of money trying to get that arranged. You’re going to end up paying the same amount of money at the end.”

GOVERNMENTS HAVE DIFFERENT PRIORITIES

Of the almost 300 total bridges in Jasper County, more than 100 of them are structurally deficient. Although Frietsch is confident in his bridge crews — which have knocked out four bridge replacements this past year and are on track to finish another four — the county still has to prioritize its projects.

In addition to the bridge data the county receives from a third-party contractor Calhoun-Burns & Associates, Inc., it is also given remaining life expectancy of these structures. Frietsch said that data is taken into account when Jasper County decides which bridges it wants to prioritize.

Jasper County also factors in traffic count, pathway redundancies and the impact on farmers. Weight restrictions on bridges can be a problem during harvest seasons, especially for farmers who have no other way to access their fields than by passing over an old bridge. Those are critical to replace, Frietsch said.

“Secondary roads’ focus is on the farmers and getting grain out the field and getting it to the market, and about getting people from one city center to another city center or from one incorporated area to another,” he said. “These situations here are very unique and they really don’t fit into what our core … work is.”

Talsma said the county only has so much money and so much time to replace about eight bridges per year. The length of time a bridge is out of commission does not factor into Jasper County’s decision to replace it. Talsma said other bridges in the county have been out of service for almost 10 years.

Although Frietsch has been working for the county for less than a year, he knows the history of the closed bridge.

In 2014 and 2018, a citizen publicly blasted the county for its handling of the bridge and demanded to know when it would be fixed or replaced. Even former county engineer Russ Stutt reasoned farmers have to drive miles and miles around a division bridge.

The North Fourth Avenue East bridge is commonly brought up by citizens during the county engineer’s five-year plan, too, Talsma said. Half want the bridge back while the other half do not want the road to be used as a “cut-across.” Talsma suggested miscommunication between parties has not helped the issue.

“I think the whole thing has just been misunderstood and miscommunicated between the city and the citizens, the county and the citizens and the citizens going to the county and then — you get what I’m saying,” Talsma said. “Stuff gets lost in translation.”

Frietsch understands there are people who want it replaced, whether to avoid the detour or have more convenient access to the Newton Arboretum & Botanical gardens.

“I’ve heard those comments made, but at this point right now our stance has been: (If) the City of Newton can manage to get something permitted, whether it’s a box culvert or whatever, we’d be willing to cooperate,” Frietsch said. “…If they can come up with it, I’m all ears.”

Hansen understands the county has to prioritize its projects, but all of the citizens in the city and in the county, he said, deserve infrastructure improvements.

“Why should they have to continue to be ignored, if you will, because it’s a smaller bridge and doesn’t have the highest priority as the rest of them? I get that we all have to prioritize work,” Hansen said. “But there is a resolution here that would be satisfactory to the city and, I hope, would be satisfactory to the county.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com