Bridge construction will close East Post Road SE at Indian Creek for up to 7 months; new, narrow bridge a citizen victory

CEDAR RAPIDS - East Post Road SE at Indian Creek will close on March 15 for up to seven months to allow for the $2.3-million replacement of the bridge over the creek.

The temporary closure, no doubt, will cause a “significant headache” for some of the 7,500 vehicles that cross the bridge every day, says Loren Snell, the city's public works construction engineering manager.

But even so, the coming of the new bridge for many is a moment of triumph, a testament to the fact that neighbors can fight City Hall and win.

In the larger picture, says Roger Stone, the new bridge in all its narrowness is the nail in the coffin for the planning idea that the scenic, twisting, two-lane East Post Road SE one day would be a thoroughfare running south across the Cedar River to Highway 30.

Stone, an attorney with Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman and a resident of the East Post Road area, led a citizen charge, beginning a decade ago, which first convinced the City Council to give up a plan to run East Post Road SE as some kind of highway south of Mount Vernon Road SE and south to the Cedar River.

In the last few years, the focus of Stone and hundreds of other City Hall skeptics has been to persuade city officials to replace the two-lane East Post Road bridge over Indian Creek with a two-lane bridge, not a wider one.

The city had planned to put in a three-lane bridge with a center lane that would allow for left turns onto streets on either side of the bridge. However, Stone and others feared the wider bridge was part of a long-term City Hall plan to widen all of East Post Road to four lanes.

In the end, the City Council and the neighbors settled on a plan to go with a new, two-lane bridge, which also will feature a 14-foot-wide trail/sidewalk on the upstream side and a regular-sized sidewalk on the downstream side.

“We're just pleased that the size of the bridge will preserve the character of the neighborhood,” Stone said. “They tell us that the walkways can't be used for roadways.”

Stone was pleased to note, too, that most of the talk these days out of City Hall about a new Cedar River bridge centers on a bridge closer to the downtown, which makes a lot more sense, he said.

The city's Snell reported that Peterson Contractors Inc., of Reinbeck, Iowa, will build the new East Post Road bridge. The firm can get up to $50,000 in incentives if it finishes the work in 105 working days instead of the 130 working days called for in the contract. A month typically has 17 working days with weekends and rain days, Snell said.

The posted detour route will take traffic off East Post Road north of the bridge via Cottage Grove Avenue SE and 34th Street SE to Mount Vernon Road SE.

Snell said some people have called his office to ask about trees that have been taken down to make way for the new bridge. He noted that grading for the bridge, in part to allow for a new storm sewer, has required cutting down some trees. He added, though, that construction plans call for planting about 100 new trees.

“Honestly, once done, I think it will be pretty nice,” Snell said.