Work begins today on a $10 million project to build a new bridge to carry Harlem Road over an upstream section of the Buffalo River. But while the bridge will replace the current century-old bridge, that bridge will remain in use until the project is complete.
The current bridge probably looks good to outsiders from many angles, but not to the engineers and planners who decided a new bridge is necessary. They look at the span, built in 1911, and see a series of giant concrete feet in the water, which could be damaged or destroyed by high water in a process called scouring. The new bridge will have just one pier in the river.
Because the bridge is in an area with few options for detours, it is being built next to the current span, which will remain in use so that traffic will be relatively unrestricted by construction. But the bridge has always been a bottleneck for the heavily-trafficked area of Harlem near Clinton, according to Cheektowaga Police assistant chief Jim Speyer.
"I know the bridge has been closed in the past a couple of times," Speyer recalls," and we didn't see a lot of the issues that maybe we thought we might face, so we have been able to manage it."
Assemblyman Mickey Kearns says the two-span solution is similar to what's being done to build the nearby Bailey Avenue bridge. Kearns calls the bridge replacements a good investment He says "it's important that we're investing in our infrastructure, and that's going to make it more resilient to withstand some of the extreme weather conditions that we've had in West Seneca."
Kearns adds that the single-pier bridge could improve water flow in the Buffalo River and help prevent future flooding.
