Sara E.K. Cooper, Titusville
The highway span that Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes and Hopewell Township Mayor Vanessa Sandom have in mind for Bear Tavern Road will have significant safety consequences to our area and they are deeply troubling.
Dangerous conditions will be created on the Ewing Township side of Bear Tavern Road (steep, downhill curve) as well as on the Hopewell Township side (similar topography and an elementary school). If the small bridge is replaced with the new span they have promised to build for some $6,000,000, the roadway would be open to any size tractors and trailers. We are being told that with the new structure, weight limits would finally be enforced to keep violators from using Bear Tavern Road. Weight limits are not enforced now. In fact, we have been told by the county executive that it is cost prohibitive to enforce these weight limits.
The only aspect of the roadway that stops the tractor-trailers is the height restriction the current bridge imposes. The bridge’s 12-foot cross bar limits some violators. Without it, all bets are off. The county’s structure has no height or weight restriction — open invitation to interstate truck traffic.
Many elected officials are clinging to a flawed argument that the bridge is unsafe. Just one month ago, the county engineer stated at a township meeting that the annual state inspection of Jacobs Creek Bridge concluded that the bridge is safe until the next scheduled inspection in 2010. A county-commissioned independent engineering firm concluded that enforcement of the bridge’s weight limit was the problem — not the bridge itself.
If our county executive and mayor truly care about safety, the bridge will be rehabbed in place. Please, hear the voices of so many: the very plan you are pushing so hard for will only lead to putting our residents and school children in harm’s way. The group, www.savethevictorytrail, has gathered support from over a thousand folks for its non-partisan efforts. I ask you, what is the point of this new structure? Why all the fuss? Scrap the plan that no one seems to want and move and spend the money on more pressing issues.
