A construction crew works on the Roosevelt Bridge on Fourth Street SE earlier this summer. The county board approved the second phase of the bridge’s restoration Tuesday. -- Herald file photo

Roosevelt Bridge will be closed again

Published 10:06am Wednesday, October 10, 2012
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The county is moving ahead on the second phase of the Roosevelt Bridge construction.

The first phase of restoring the historic bridge was completed recently, and the next phase will likely begin in April or May.

The bridge spans the Cedar River on Fourth Street SE between Fourth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.

The work will close the bridge again for most of next summer and will include a new deck, new railings, redoing a headwall, and other changes.

When the project is finished, the bridge will have new sidewalks on both sides.

Previous estimates call for the project to cost about $3.6 million, but only about $800,000 would be local dollars. About $2.1 would come from federal dollars, and about $800,000 would be from state bonds.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/tzabel1 Terry Zabel

    What a waste of money! Is this part of the mayors doing? If so another reason to get rid of him

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    • LEXXfan

      Why is it a waste of money? Would you rather it continue to deteriorate until it is condemned and has to be torn down? Then they would need to spend millions more to build a brand new one. This is really the only historic bridge left in town, and looks like something you could see in Europe. Educate yourself before making ignorant comments.

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    • LEXXfan

      Why is it a waste of money? Would you prefer it continue to deteriorate until it becomes unusable and then needs to be torn down?? Then it would cost millions more to build a new one. This is really the only historic bridge left in Austin, and looks like something you could see in Europe. Educate yourself before making ignorant comments.

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      • http://www.facebook.com/tzabel1 Terry Zabel

        It would cost 1 million to build a new one and 3.6 million to restore. Who is the ignorant one???

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  • LEXXfan

    Whatever you say, Terry. You are making some pretty unsubstantiated assumptions there regarding how many people know or care about that bridge. As for the replacement costs, where do you come up with the $1 million figure?? Are you a transportation engineer? And no, I am not the mayor. I am just a regular citizen who gets sick and tired of hearing all the b#tching and moaning from the anti-tax zombies about how the government is taking all of “their” money and wasting it on a bunch of worthless projects. You want to live in a no-tax society, then go live in Mexico.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/tzabel1 Terry Zabel

    Put your name on here if you want to start calling people names. LOL, if you wouldn’t be ignorant and do your research first you would know when they were planning the bridge replacement they had the option to build a new bridge for less than 1 million or restore it for 3.6 million. Open your mind before your big mouth, coward.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/tzabel1 Terry Zabel

    What a stupid thing to say, go live in Mexico if I want to live in a no tax society. I don’t mind paying taxes for things that are needed. The bridge could have been replaced for less than 1 million dollars, but since a few people thought it looks pretty and is old we need to spend an additional 2.6 million dollars to renovate it. Is this a good use of the taxpayers money? Maybe we can use it for a homeless shelter that we could have built with that money. Maybe we can show it to the poor in Austin and say, hey, this is what you get instead of help with food or rent. The lack of thought by people like you is the reason there is so much wasteful spending in this country and the reason we are $16,000,000,000,000 in debt.

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  • leftthehatebehind

    And you aren’t calling names and don’t have your name on here either??

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