JOHNSTOWN — For City Engineer Christopher Vose, the Miller Street bridge project fulfills a legacy. Not Vose’s legacy, but the legacy of Mayor Michael Julius, who died unexpectedly in 2016 at the age of 66.
Julius was the city’s mayor at the time of his death, and one of his goals was to reopen the Miller Street bridge, according to Vose. Vose would know. He was family friends with Julius. In fact, Vose said, Julius personally recruited him to the city engineering job seven years ago.
Now, the bridge on Miller Street is days away from opening after being closed for more than a decade. In 2011, the span was dubbed “structurally deficient” during a state inspection, Vose said. That forced the city to close the bridge, which was built in 1930.
“When it gets to a certain point, eventually you run out of options. You can’t patch it anymore, and it just wasn’t safe to keep traffic on it,” Vose said.
So Vose made it one of his missions to reopen the bridge. In late 2015, the city began applying for grants. In 2017, they were awarded a roughly $100,000 Dormitory Authority of the state of New York grant that could be used to pay for the $59,385 galvanized steel structure, Vose said. The city ordered the bridge in 2018, Vose said, but it sat in pieces until this year because the Department of Public Works didn’t have the right personnel to complete the construction, Vose said.
“It was a combination of the amount of time it was going to take with a little bit of lack of experience [among the city’s DPW workforce],” Vose said.
Then, earlier this year, the state assembly awarded $100 million for State Route NY, a grant program to reimburse cities, towns and villages for the cost of local capital projects on N.Y. or U.S. signed State Touring Routes. Johnstown’s allotment helped cover the labor by an outside contractor, Jablonski Excavating, based in St. Johnsville. The funding also helped pay to put in new culverts on North and South Chase streets, Vose said.
In total, the Miller Street project will cost about $550,000, with Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program money covering what the State Route NY funding won’t, according to Vose.
“That Touring Route money came to us at a perfect time and opened up some other opportunities,” Vose said.
The new bridge, which is located on Miller Street behind the T.J. Maxx, crosses the Cayadutta Creek. The span measures 37 feet in width and is 33.5 feet long. The galvanized steel undergirding is topped with concrete. The last step that must be completed before the bridge can open to traffic is to put in temporary concrete barriers that’ll be used to extend the guardrails before permanent guardrail end pieces can be installed in the spring. Vose said those guardrail ends have been ordered.
“We’re working on it with a supplier, but they aren’t going to be done before winter starts, so we’re going to put some temporary Jersey barriers up to protect traffic from the creek.”
Deputy city engineer Jeff Putman, who grew up in Johnstown, said the new bridge is good for the city.
“It’s a big deal. I think the residents are going to be happy that it’s back open again,” Putman said. “Who wants a closed bridge in their city?”
Vose said he thinks Mayor Julius would be pleased to see the project completed.
“I think he’d be pretty excited. He was always big on that stuff. He thought it would help tie the arterial back into this area,” Vose said. “It opens travel routes up. It gives us more access points. So I think he’d be pretty happy because it accomplishes one of the things he wanted to accomplish.”
Andrew Waite can be reached at awaite@dailygazette.net and at 518-417-9338. Follow him on Twitter @UpstateWaite.
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