By Andy Brophy

The town’s Board of Finance voted 6-0 Tuesday night to approve $172,500 to fund the initial design and permitting of a replacement bridge on Jesup Road.

The funding request heads to a final vote by the Representative Town Meeting during tonight’s 7:30 p.m. Zoom meeting.

Two-way Bay Street coming

Larry Roberts, director of the town’s Department of Public Works, told Board of Finance members that the town plans to make Bay Street into a two-way street. It is now one-way heading south off Post Road East. Roberts said this will help alleviate traffic at the intersection of Post Road East, Imperial Avenue and Myrtle Avenue, which has increased since the closure of Jesup Road after the bridge was severely damaged in a Sept. 13 storm.

He said the two-way designation would enable police officers who aren’t out on patrol and emergency medical services, which are stationed at the Police Department on Jesup Road, to respond faster to calls on the southeast part of town.

The two-way designation would take away parking spaces on Bay Street, but motorists could instead park on nearby Jesup Road, Roberts said.

Bay Street is wide enough for two travel lanes and is not controlled by a traffic light so the state Department of Transportation would not have to get involved, Roberts said. The only work involved with making Bay Street two ways involves changing signs and adding stripes on the street, he said.

Changing Taylor Place, which is now one-way toward the Post Road, into a two-way street is more problematic because while the DOT is willing to change the timing of a traffic light at the intersection of Taylor Place and the Post Road, it wasn’t willing to change pedestrian crossing at the intersection, Roberts said.

Replacement bridge

Meanwhile, RFPs (requests for proposals) for design and engineering of the replacement bridge are due Oct. 24, Roberts said.

Construction of the replacement bridge can’t start until grants are approved, though the badly-damaged bridge could be demolished and removed beforehand, Roberts said. He estimated that work at $40,000.

Grant money

Roberts said town officials are aware of a state grant that would fund 50 percent of the construction cost of the replacement bridge, which he estimated at $3+ million.

“We’re not sure of any federal money available but will continue to pursue that,” he said. “Assistance from FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is unknown. State grants usually move at a much quicker pace than federal grants.”

Roberts said town officials haven’t discarded the idea of a temporary pre-fabricated bridge on Jesup Road, but he said it would cost $300,000, abutments under the damaged bridge would have to be repaired, and the inadequate passageway for water to flow under the bridge would still exist.

Also, the temporary bridge would have to go up and over the damaged bridge and only 15 to 20 feet of space exists between the Jesup Road bridge and Imperial Avenue, according to Roberts.

“Get this done quickly”

Liz Heyer, a Board of Finance member, questioned, in the interest of exploring all possibilities, if traffic improvements could be made that would make replacing the bridge unnecessary.

But Roberts said a bridge on Jesup Road over Deadman Brook served a valid purpose not just for emergency responders stationed at the Police Department but also for the flow of traffic downtown.

Nancy Kail, an RTM member from District 9, said the Jesup Road bridge closure impacted The Westport Library and downtown businesses, and she suggested finance board members visit the Westport Farmers’ Market on Imperial Avenue on Thursday, saying the traffic was awful with the Jesup Road bridge closed.

“This is an important bridge. It’s a very practical bridge,” she said. “We want to support this in any way we can to get this done quickly.”

Kail said her constituents have asked what they can do to get a bridge back because its closure was making their lives miserable.

Jennifer Johnson, also an RTM member from District 9, said the $172,500 funding request was a “no brainer.”

“We need this bridge,” she said. “It is very important.”

Johnson said the town needed to address culverts before they become emergencies. At Tuesday night’s RTM meeting, she said the inadequate Town Plan of Conservation and Development adopted in 2017 and meant to last 10 years was being felt in Westport today.

The bridge damaged Sept. 13 was built in 1952, and obtaining permits for the replacement bridge will be time consuming because the new bridge will have to be wider, and a tidal waterway flows underneath it, Roberts said.

Permits are needed from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and possibly the DOT, Roberts said in a document addressed to First Selectman Kevin Christie.

A chain-link fence was installed this week in front of the damaged Jesup Road bridge to prevent pedestrians from trying to cross it, Roberts said. “That’s how dangerous it is,” he said.

Andy Brophy

Andy Brophy is an experienced Fairfield County journalist. Andy was a staff writer at The Connecticut Post for 10 years. He also wrote for the Norwalk Hour, Fairfield Minuteman, Fairfield Patch and weekly newspapers in Westport, Fairfield and Norwalk. When not reporting, Andy enjoys playing chess and listening to pianist Art Tatum. ^_.