Following an alignment of several funding sources recently, St. Joseph County Road Commission (SJCRC) staff said the Langley Covered bridge will receive an extensive overhaul in 2023 at a board meeting Tuesday. Funding from the state legislature and the Southwest Region Bridge Council of Michigan (SWBC) will fund a significant portion of the work. SJCRC will provide some of its own funds and Managing Director John Lindsey said he hopes the County Commission will close a remaining gap.
Lindsey and Assistant Manager and Engineer Garrett Myland said they estimate the rehabilitation work will cost about $2 million. The work is to include rehabilitation or replacement of the decking, substructure, and pilings and touch up of the wooden truss structure and its plank enclosure above the deck. Myland said the amount is enough to “do it right, the way it should be done.”
The state funding came as a result of advocacy from area legislators, including State Representative Aaron Miller and State Senator Kim LaSata, Lindsey said. LaSata advocated for funding for the bridge last year as part of routine end-of-year supplemental funding packages. However, those funds were cut because of the pandemic. LaSata and Miller made a pitch for the funding again this year and secured $750,000.
That commitment is the second significant commitment from the state in recent months. Earlier this summer, Myland said SJCRC is in the running for having a bridge span replacement on Nottawa Road covered as part of a statewide bridge-bundling project. In that project, several bridges around the state will be replaced under a single contract. Advocacy by the County Road Association helped with that initiative, Lindsey said.
Following the state’s news on the Langley Bridge, Myland said SWBC met on Monday and approved $760,000 toward the bridge. The appropriation must still be approved by another body, the Local Bridge Advisory Board, but Myland said that it has not turned down a single SWBC-recommended project in the past 15 years. The SWBC funds and the state money bring the total to just over $1.5 million.
Lindsey said SWBC’s decision is significant because the agency only approved about 10 percent of the funds various entities requested from around southwest Michigan. In total, he said, SWBC received $42,679,272 million in funding requests from the region. “We’re blessed to get $750,000,” Lindsey said. “I know some of the bridges in the area. They’re bad too. We picked the right bridge and the right amount. It all worked out well.” Director of Fleets and Facilities Nate Taylor said if the legislature hadn’t approved its funds, the SWBC approval might not have worked out.
Lindsey said SJCRC will put $300,000 of its own funds toward the project. That amount plus the state’s $750,000 contribution equate to about 62 percent of the projected project cost, enough to meet SWBC’s purposes for a local contribution. The figures were based on calculations Myland and Lindsey did in trying to predict what SWBC would find attractive enough to approve. Myland said, “I think we 100 percent picked the right numbers,” based on SWBC’s approval.
To reach the $2 million mark, Lindsey hopes to work with the county. St. Joseph County maintains a fund called the Critical Road Bridge Fund separate from any funds SJCRC routinely receives. It is overseen by the County Commission, which is not required by law to provide the funds to SJCRC. However, Lindsey has hope that county commissioners will see the project’s value and close the remaining gap of about $200,000.
Lindsey said he is considering an engineering firm for the project whose staff team includes someone Federally certified to work with the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), which will have oversight regarding engineering decisions for the work. In previous work on the bridge, Lindsey said a separate architecture firm was responsible for SHPO-related decisions, which slowed down project schedules. Having those services “under the same firm is going to make our lives a heck of a lot easier,” Lindsey said.
The 282-foot bridge dates to 1887. It is located on the St. Joseph River in Lockport Township, just upstream from the Sturgis Dam. Parts of its wooden substructure were replaced in the early 1950s with steel and concrete. Its last major work took place in the late 2000s.
Road Commissioner Rodney Chupp said the funding developments were “exciting news” and a “win for St. Joseph County.” In a time when some places have been replicating covered bridges that no longer stand, Chupp said work to “not only maintain” but keep the Langley Covered Bridge usable is “a win for history, and a good thing all the way around.” Chupp offered kudos to Lindsey, Myland, and Taylor.
Road Commissioners Approve Vehicle and Equipment Purchases
Members of the SJCRC Board approved three major purchases at Wednesday’s meeting, including a CAT wheeled excavator, three new trucks, and three equipment packages for those trucks. The excavator purchase will take place this fall, whereas the truck and related equipment packages will arrive in 2021 and will be paid at that time. However, because pandemic supply chain issues have prolonged manufacturing and delivery lead times, Lindsey said he needed the approval now in order to get into the production lineup.
The wheeled excavator’s primary purpose will be to replace two existing boom mowers, which are smaller and lighter. “What’s happened now is that tractors and mowers are so expensive, we decided to buy a wheeled excavator,” Lindsey said. For trimming heavy weeds and brush alongside county roads, Lindsey said the excavator is “built for this kind of work, which destroys mowers.”
The truck purchase includes three 2022 model year Peterbilt 367 tandem-axle cab and chassis assemblies at a price of $132,690 each from JX Peterbilt. The purchase fits within SJRC’s long-running replacement schedule. Every other year, a part of the truck fleet is replaced, with either three or four trucks being purchased at a time. In the intervening years, other equipment purchases take place. The idea, Lindsey said, is to manage the average age of the total truck fleet. The current average age is 10 years. The approved purchase will reduce it to eight.
Lindsey said the purchase also represents a departure from trucks that use Cummins diesel engines. The trucks’ new model MX13 engines will be made by Paccar, which is the parent company of truck makers Peterbilt and Kenworth. Taylor said Paccar’s associated emissions control software is faster and easier to use than that which supports Cummins engines, and comes recommended by colleagues in other agencies. Over the course of the transitions, Taylor said SJCRC will have to maintain two software subscriptions, but the Paccar subscription is a one-time, $1,500 purchase.
The remaining purchase approval Wednesday was for equipment to go with each of the three new trucks. Truck and Trailer is the selling firm and Monroe Dump is the manufacturer for equipment packages priced at $99,562 apiece. The packages include dump boxes, scrapers, wing plows and associated mounts, hydraulic control systems, and lighting, among other items. Lindsey said the price is up four percent from the last purchase two years ago, mostly due to increased metal prices. Taylor said the equipment will not be paid for until delivery, which is not anticipated until August or September 2021 or later due to pandemic-related lead times.
Seasonal Projects Winding Down
Road commission crews and contractors are finishing various projects around the county through the early fall. Chip seal road surface treatments wrapped up several weeks ago, and Lindsey said next year’s supply of chip seal stone has gone out to bid. The last few paving and other projects, including work on Wait Road, Nottawa Road, Fawn River Road, Schweitzer Road, and a few others, are winding down. Some work is ongoing, and some last project components will start shortly as Road Commission staff and contractors juggle schedules.
A bridge replacement project on Coon Hollow Road is underway. The replacement span was fabricated earlier this year and is awaiting deconstruction and removal of the current one. Lindsey said the bridge will be out of service for about two weeks.
Other Road Commission Business
Lindsey said two of SJCRC’s drivers have left for higher paying jobs in the private sector. This happens sometimes, he said, when the private sector job market is hot. He said he has a stack of applicants to back fill the positions. That stack typically grows when the private market is weaker, often bolstered by the fact that SJCRC can offer better stability and benefits. Currently, Lindsey said, it is a “tough market to keep good drivers.”
The County Road Association Self-Insurance Pool (CRASIP), which ensures agencies like SJCRC and promotes safety initiatives around the state, has named SJCRC to its honor roll. In addition, CRASIP has awarded SJCRC a $500 safety grant, which Lindsey said will go into the agency’s safety funds to cover coats and other protective equipment.
Dave Vago is a writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
