Bridge closing diminishes travel options in Delaware County

The bridges of Delaware County continue to diminish.

Two of the three Maquoketa River bridges linking southern and central Delaware County will be out of service effective Jan. 10 when the Bailey's Ford bridge closes for replacement by a new and larger structure.

With the July 24 destruction of the bridge on County Road X31, which was part of the flood breached Lake Delhi dam, travelers in that region will be able to conveniently cross the river only at the Hartwick Marina bridge on 220th Avenue.

Maquoketa River flooding sometimes closes the Hartwick bridge, which could delay ambulance and fire services to residents on the south side of the river, according to Jim Willey, president of the Lake Delhi Recreation Association.

When the Hartwick bridge is out of service, the closest alternative is the Highway 20 bridge at the south edge of Manchester.

Willey said the association had asked the county to delay the Bailey's Ford bridge replacement until the flood-destroyed bridge on X-31 could be repaired or replaced.

But delaying the project could jeopardize the federal funding that will pay 80 percent of the new bridge's estimated $989,000 cost, according to County Engineer Anthony Bladgett.

A new X-31 bridge is at least two years in the future, according to County Supervisor Jerry Ries.

Both Ries and Bladgett said a new X-31 bridge will not run across the top of a rebuilt Lake Delhi dam, as the old one had done.

“If there is going to be a bridge, it would have to be separate from the dam,” Bladgett said.

X-31 is a farm-to-market road eligible for federal highway funds, and federal rules will not permit the new bridge to cross a rebuilt dam, Ries said.

Bladgett said a new X-31 bridge would cross the river about 200 to 300 feet downstream of the dam.

If the dam is rebuilt with a spillway to prevent a future flood-caused breach, vehicles would not be able to drive over the spillway, he said. The bridge would have to be elevated above the spillway, which would add to construction costs, Bladgett said.

Bladgett said he has applied for federal funding for the replacement but has had no response yet on the application.

“All we really have at this point is a concept, with a ballpark estimate of the cost. I ballparked it at $4 million,” he said.

Bladgett said replacement of the Bailey's Ford bridge, which links 240th Street with 197th Avenue at the upstream end of the former Lake Delhi, will take from six to eight months.

The concrete beam bridge, 359 feet long by 30 feet wide, will replace a 1957 bridge that is 300 feet long and 20 feet wide, he said.

The old bridge, he said, is showing wear in both its piers and deck.