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April 25, 2009

Bridge replacement leads to temporary detour for travelers

Motorists driving east of Buffalo between Buffalo and the State Highway 34 junction on U.S. Highway 64 are being rerouted south to Woodward through Fort Supply and then to Buffalo.

The detour is to get them off 64 while crews working for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation replace a bridge at Badger Creek.

Motorists will have followed State Highway 34 for 15 days, according to James Robison, area maintenance manager for ODOT.

“They closed the road April 18,” Robison said.

Scott Armstrong, construction engineer, said the local people don’t have to go so far out of their way because they know the county roads and understand short cuts.

Because the detour on 64 is official, “we have posted it with signs,” he said.

Armstrong said the bridge is being replaced because it is structurally unsound and “is no longer feasible.”

“It was structurally obsolete,” he said, noting, “We’re replacing it with a three-cell box.”

In other words, the bridge will have three openings for water to go under it, he said.

Although the detour will be lifted May 4, Armstrong said the bridge will remain under construction for 60 to 90 days while crews work to replace it.

He said ODOT is “always conscious of the impact on the traveling public associated with closing a road. When considering a road closure, we ... look at the type and number of vehicles using the road and how we can reduce the construction time including using pay incentives.”

During the early planning stage, he said, the decision was made to minimize the time by replacing the existing bridge with three rows of precast reinforced concrete boxes sitting on a concrete base.

“By doing this, we believed that we could have the road reopened within 15 days,” he said.

According to Robison, crews began working on the bridge a month or so ago under traffic.

“They just (recently) closed the road,” he said. “While it is closed for 15 days, they are working around the clock. They have to have the road open to traffic in 15 days to avoid a penalty.”

Robison could not say when work on Badger Creek Bridge would be completed.

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