Pinehaven bridge will need repairs, eventual replacement

By Randy Bell

A heavily-traveled bridge over Bogue Chitto Creek in Clinton needs to be replaced. But the City should be able to buy some time by shoring up the bridge with a temporary fix. The bridge on Pinehaven Road has undergone previous repairs and is posted with a three-ton weight limit.

“It’s a timber pile bridge,” says Consulting City Engineer Bill Owen. “Some of the piles are showing some decay and some rot. In order to repair those, a contractor will splice those piles—kind of a Band-aid, if you will—to keep that bridge open until we can ultimately get it replaced.”

Owen says the repair work could cost about $75,000.

“It’s an accepted practice,” he says, and something that the Office of State Aid Road Construction allows. “But it is not a permanent fix.”

And Owen says, even after the repairs, the weight limit might stay the same.

He told the Board of Aldermen at their March 6 work session that replacing the bridge would cost between $4 million and $5 million. And he cautioned that even if the City had the money in hand now – which it doesn’t – it would still take fifteen to eighteen months to get ready to begin work.

But there’s a big payoff once the project is completed: Owen says a new concrete bridge will not only be stronger but also “wider and with the bridge rails and everything else.”