Wadhams Bridge

This bridge is doomed, and plans are to demolish it in 2009.

Destined For The Dumpster: My Impressions After June 5

I am not an engineer, but I was not in the least bit surprised when St. Clair County suddenly announced they would be posting a weight limit that they had applied for replacement funding that would be available on 2009. After all, I had walked under the bridge a over a year ago and seen the damage for myself, particularly under the north approach spans. I had also noted slow deck deterioration as well. The dramatic increase in traffic and heavy applications of salt in the winter that occurred over the past few years only furthered my suspicions of the future. Many years ago, there was no salt put on this bridge, and instead cinders were put down to provide traction in the winter. The idea was to preserve the deck of the bridge. However, they stopped doing that some time ago, and started salting the bridge, which almost immediately started advancing the deterioration on the bridge. Moreover, a signed Alternative to M-25 Route" carried even more heavy traffic, from semi trucks to tons of mall-bound shoppers across this bridge that used to only have to deal with local rural traffic and gravel trucks. This alternate route, which sent commercial city traffic out onto once-rural roads was an absurd move. I would rather have seen the actual M-25 widened and turned into a divided highway myself. More costly perhaps, but it would have made getting through Port Huron a lot easier for people. Port Huron is a long and narrow town in terms of layout, which means there is one main road, and M-25 is it. One might say that this Wadhams Bridge's doom was caused by urban sprawl, from people populating St. Clair county as they moved up from the Detroit area. The result, is the transportation systems can't handle the increased traffic, and so things must change, and according to the way that our transportation system in this country works, that means that culture and heritage, often in the form of historic bridges, gets cast aside.

My Impressions of The Bridge Prior to Weight Limit Posting

This bridge has the appearance a newer bridge on top, but a look from below reveals this to be a much older deck plate girder bridge. Although it was primarily a rural access road, this bridge now carries a lot of traffic these days. It is part of a strange signed Alternate 69/94 to M-25 Route, which was apparently designed to relieve traffic on the expressway and M-25 through Port Huron. I do not think that sending expressway traffic onto a two-lane road with an aging plate girder on it is a very smart thing to do. It certainly does not make it pleasant for people that actually live in the area and use this bridge to get around.

This bridge, which has a decent slope to it, has been extensively modified. One of the concrete supports have been replaced. Some of the steel approach supports have had additional steel welded on. The deck has been widened and replaced. This was done by adding an extra beam to each side of the steel stringer approaches. The main span was widened by bolting steel cantilevers onto the bridge. As a result, original guardrails do not remain on this bridge. A sidewalk is present on the east side of the deck. A plaque, mounted on the new guardrails, shows the original bridge having a construction date of 1939. A second plaque, much newer, shows a date of 1976, presumably showing when these modifications were completed. This bridge took the place of a one-span through truss, which stood long after this bridge was built, but is no longer extant. The remains are located a bit west of the current bridge. The current bridge is in good condition overall, and no weight limit is posted, however there is severe rust, caused by salt, to the i-beams below the expansion joints on the north approach spans. Some 10 years ago, the county used cinders on this bridge instead of salt, to protect the bridge. This is no longer done, and the damage caused within the past decade has been dramatic.