Open Letter About the Swinging Bridge: Context, History, and Options
Last modified on March 4th, 2020 at 10:16 am
Friday afternoon, Mayor Broughton delivered the following letter to residents of Chestnut and Dowell streets who requested information about the city’s plans for the swinging bridge. It is published here to provide more information about the history and realistic options for replacing the bridge.
Thank you for your letters of 31 December and 27 January raising questions about the swinging bridge that formerly spanned the Tygart Valley River between the Elkins Railyard and your neighborhood.
Your questions relate to the bridge’s history; responsibility for maintenance of the bridge; reasons for its closure; the current status of grant awards for bridge repair or replacement; and reasons why other expenditures have been prioritized over a project to replace this bridge.
Below, we have provided the best answers we have to your questions, along with some additional context and history that we hope will be helpful to the ongoing public conversation about the bridge. (more…)