Hey Concord! We Got Us a New Bridge!!!

First thing this morning I took a short trek east on Cornell Rd. to the bridge over the Kalamazoo which has been AWOL for the entire summer thus far.  What I found was a very pleasant surprise indeed!  Our JCDOT has installed our new bridge and are placing the finishing touches on it as this goes to print.  All that is left is building the ramps up to the level of the new deck on both sides and paving the approaches.  Personally, I’m giving odds it will be back in service in less than 15 days!  How fantastic is that?

I’m including a short pictorial history of the project from condemnation to completion here in this blog so you can see the work JCDOT put in on this, and so you can see how remarkably well this bridge fits in, and even complements the area it services.  It is a wooden bridge, built of a specially treated timber and heavily galvanized fasteners to last for decades.  In my opinion it’s a beast of a bridge!  It is designed to easily handle the expected loads and – as you can see from the photos – it really looks good!

And the absolute best thing about this bridge?  Well I thought you’d never ask!!  It did not cost Concord Township one thin dime!  Nothing!  Just a momentary inconvenience while JCDOT did all the heavy lifting for us.  Now, I ask you:  How cool is that?

I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t tell you how thoroughly pleased I’ve been with Jim Cole (my liaison) in particular and JCDOT in general.  They bent over backwards to develop, engineer and fund this project and I feel we were moved to the head of the line.  I know there are other communities who have been without bridges for a lot longer than we were, some of them for years.

So as the Supervisor of this budding little metropolis, I would like to offer my most heartfelt “Thanks” on a job excellently done!  And I heartily encourage all of our residents to offer their vote of thanks to JCDOT as well.  You may email Jim Cole at: [email protected]   And tell him I sent you.  As my sainted mother used to say: Gratitude is the fertile dirt in which all good things grow!”