OTTAWA — Franklin County commissioners have received a recommendation from county staff to abandon the damaged but historic Tauy Creek bridge northeast of Ottawa. County administrator Lisa Johnson said repairing the isolate bridge presents a choice of spending $500,000 for a bridge that only serves a few people. And it’s not worth the cost, she added. The bridge is on Nebraska Drive over the creek and has been closed for several years. The bridge deck was severely damaged when vandals set fire to the wooden planking. However, an earlier proposal to abandon the bridge stirred public protests. Commissioners were reviewing an annual inspection report Monday of “fracture critical” bridges, those that are built in such a way that in event that one structural member breaks, the entire bridge would collapse – generally older bridges built without duplicate structural members. However, the federal emphasis on fracture-critical bridges is a result of the deadly collapse of the major bridge over the Mississippi River linking Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota a few years ago.
Tuesday, Sept. 28, 7 a.m.
