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PrintStephens College recently announced it is going to replace the two, 40-year-old bridges over Broadway and College Avenue. I asked to see the new plans, and they gladly showed them to me. The new bridges are designed very much like the old bridges, with open sides and top so objects can fall or be thrown onto traffic below or someone could even jump. Columbia has had someone fall from a pedestrian bridge recently.
Seven years ago, I noticed the rusting condition of the anchor bolts that connect the bridge to the supporting ground members. I visited the City of Columbia's Protective Inspection Department and asked if those bridges had ever been inspected. I was told the bridges were not over a city street, so inspecting was not the city's responsibility, even though Columbia citizens walked over and traveled under the bridges. The Protective Inspection Department suggested I go upstairs and speak to the city engineer. After waiting outside his office for 45 minutes, I left my card and went home. He phoned me and ask if I thought the bridges would fall, and I said, Yes.
Since the Protective Inspection Department said the bridges were over Missouri Department of Transportation roadways, I visited M0DOT at 4201 Paris Road. I was told the bridges were not on MoDOT property, so it had no control. Where the main beams touch the ground supports, the large beams have the lower flange cut off and part of the vertical member cut short with a small plate welded to the remaining web. The plates, on each end of each beam, have two holes drilled to receive the anchor bolts. The bolts on the outside of each support are badly rusted. The bolts for the other side are rusted away and gone, leaving a rusted hole in the small plates.
I checked the bridges March 27, and I think the bridges should be inspected and closed NOW!
P.S.: After viewing the new plans for half an hour, the new bridges beams, plates and bolts will be covered, so you will not be able to see any rust or determine if any parts are failing, in my opinion.
Harry R. Weitkemper is a Columbia resident and a retired design draftsman.
Show Me the Errors 
Comments
"I was told the bridges were not over a city street, so inspecting was not the city's responsibility"
But:
"the two, 40-year-old bridges over Broadway and College Avenue"
Those parts of Broadway and College aren't city streets?
College and Broadway are maintained by MODOT.
I've walked across those bridges regularly for the past 5 years and I too have noticed that they are deteriorating; so much so, that I seldom walk on them now. I'm glad that Stephen's has made these bridges available to all of us and I think that the city should help them with repair/maintenance costs, if necessary.
@ John Schultz:
Then isn't the bridge across South Providence also over a street maintained by MODOT? Providence is also a numbered state highway. Of course that bridge is relatively new.
"College and Broadway are maintained by MODOT."
Some parts of Broadway aren't maintained by MoDOT. Is the section with the Stephens bridge definitely not the city's responsibility? In 2010, the city asked MoDOT for a grant to help upgrade those two bridges, and I'm not sure why the city would do that it if those areas are already state roads.
According to www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/mar/14..., the state maintains "a stretch of West Broadway." Anybody know where that stretch ends?
There's also the bridge on Providence just north of Walnut. As far as I know, that bridge has always been the city's responsibility, including the recent decision to tear it down. But is that a different case than the MU bridge, which isn't owned by the city?