TOPSHAM

Three out of four Topsham selectmen in attendance during Thursday’s presentation on the Frank J. Wood “Green” Bridge spoke in favor of replacing the structure.

The board took no formal action during the meeting, however. The Maine Department of Transportation is asking the board to support replacing the bridge, despite a call by some residents to save it.

Topsham Economic and Community Development Director John Shattuck gave an update on MDOT’s improvement process regarding the bridge that connects Route 24 in Brunswick and Topsham and spans the Androscoggin River.

The public was told at a MDOT meeting on the bridge on April 27 that, while safe for the time being, the bridge is structurally deficient. Officials recommended replacing the bridge with a new structure for an estimate cost of $12 million to $13 million. That’s compared with the estimated $10 million it would cost to rehabilitate the existing bridge and extend its life by another 30 years. A new bridge, by contrast, would have a 100-year life span.

Shattuck said bridge rehabilitation would hurt downtown businesses, because the bridge would be closed for between 10 and 21 months. Rehabilitation would result in higher maintenance and inspection costs, and the bridge would still need to be replaced in 30 years following the rehabilitation.

There have been many suggestions for improvements to MDOT’s new bridge design, including aesthetic and functional features and traffic calming measures.

Shattuck recommended selectmen consider adopting a resolution supporting replacement of the existing bridge, as well as appointing a design advisory committee jointly with Brunswick to create the best plan that meets Topsham’s needs.

The board will consider Shattuck’s request at its June 2 meeting.

“At the end of the day, this isn’t Topsham’s decision. This isn’t Brunswick’s decision,” Selectman Dave Douglass said. “We have an ability to work with (MDOT) to try to serve our needs as much as we can, is my take. But at the end of the day, we can either be a part of this process and swim along with the fish or we can get muddy in the water and still make no headway.”

Selectman William Thompson said the bridge replacement project may help the town move forward with development of its Lower Village. At some point the 84-year-old bridge needs to be replaced, he said.

“Taking the emotions out of it, the politics, whatever you want to call it … when I look at money for a rehab project and a money for a rebuilt project and the timelines involved, to me it’s pretty much a no-brainer,” he said.

Doug Bennett, of Elm Street, said he wants the town to get behind working with MDOT on the design of the bridge because the preliminary bridge design is not appropriate.

“What we need … is a bridge that connects the two towns and serves the purposes of the two village standards that it connects,” Bennett said. “And the bridge that they’ve designed wouldn’t do that. It says zoom. It says floor it, and we do not need people moving their cars at 30, 35, 40 miles an hour through our villages.”

Speakers disagreed with MDOT’s projected cost of a rehabilitation and also the resulting life span of a rehabilitation. No one came to speak to the 16 families living near the bridge, said Ann Carroll of Summer Street.

“It’s really terrible for anybody who is living there,” she said. “What we’re subjected to then is this concrete understory that we’re having to look at and because the new bridge has such a deep steel girder. It really, for us, becomes not only ugly but really threatening.”

“There are a number of us who have concerns about it coming down,” said Scott Hanson of Pleasant Street an architectural historian. The federal historic review is underway on this project, he said, which will influence whether or not the old bridge can come down.

He urged selectmen to wait before making any resolution because that process is just beginning.

A number of other states have rehabilitated other bridges of this sort with life expectations of 75, 80 and 100 years, Hanson said. He argued saving the bridge would make it a “rare surviving example” that will add to the historic attractiveness of the community.

dmoore@timesrecord.com