Baltimore, CSX finalize agreement on bridges
The Dixon administration is expected to bring two contracts before the Board of Estimates Wednesday cementing its 2-year-old accord with CSX under which the railroad will pay roughly three-quarters of the cost of replacing two of the city’s most deteriorated bridges.
After years of wrangling, the city and CSX reached agreement in principle on the formula for paying for the replacement of the Fort Avenue and Sinclair Lane bridges in Oct. 2007. But it has taken two years to work out details.
The delay, according to city deputy transportation director Jamie Kendrick, was the result of “a thousand details and lots of lawyers but other than that it was easy.”
Under the contracts, which CSX has already signed, the railroad will pay 75 percent of the construction costs and 100 percnet of the engineering costs on the Fort Avenue bridge. The city willl contribute the other quarter of the building costs.
That bridge was the subject of public protests by a Locust Point woman named Karen Johns (above), who became well-known in the city as ‘The Bridge Lady.” Johns badgered elected officials to put pressure on CSX to replace the visibly crumbling bridge, which was built in 1920 and scored 36 points out of 100 – a failing grade -- on a recent inspection.
Sun photo/Kim Hairston
The same formula will apply to the construction costs at Sinclair Lane, except that the first $2.3 million will be covered by a congressional earmark secured by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-7th.
The engineering on the Sinclair Lane bridge has already been completed, and construction is expected to begin in May or June, Kendrick said. The Nineteenth Century bridge, whose exact date of construction is unknown, will take 15-18 months to replace. It scored 33 points out 100 on its most recent inspection in 2007.
The Fort Avenue bridge bridge project, whic has yet to go through engineering, is expected to reach its construction phase in late 2010 or early 2011. Kendrick said the work on the bridge, on the route to Fort McHenry, will be reopened in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812 in May 2012. Until then, visitors to the fort will have to take a detour.
Kendrick said the city and CSX are currently in negotiations over the railroad’s bridge over the tracks at Sisson Street near Charles Village and one of its crossings of Hanover Street in South Baltimore. The city and railroad are also discussing a series of stone arches on the crosstown Belt Line between Charles Village and Harford Road.
The agreements and the talks represent a sea change in the once-prickly relationship of the city and CSX, which publicly feuded in the aftermath of the 2001 Howard Street Tunnel derailment and fire.
Kendrick credited a change in CSX management’s attitude toward working with local governments.
“This is a whole new approach to doing things than has been the case for many decades,” he said.
Kendrick said Cummings and former Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari helped Mayor Sheila Dixon persuade CSX to address the bridge issue.
“For years the city has been trying get CSX to the table. It was indeed a convergence of forces that got them there,” Kendrick said.
Comments
Visitors to Fort McHenry will have to take a "detour"? Isn't this the only way in and out? Or is this bridge closer to Federal Hill?
REPLY: The city apparently will have a detoiur via McComas Street.
Posted by: Mitch | November 17, 2009 9:34 AM
Though residents of Locust Point will probably hate it, the fort could be reached by following Key Highway South (keep straight at Maryland Drydock) and back to Fort Avenue on one of the side streets.
Posted by: Federal Hill Jim | November 17, 2009 2:07 PM
Ahhh, I think I was imagining the wrong bridge; this is the one on Fort near Lowman Street, not the larger bridge closer to the Fort.
Posted by: Mitch | November 17, 2009 7:27 PM