Bird-delayed Pawnee Street Bridge reopens for good

After a lengthy street project delayed by nesting birds and unexpected corrosion, the Pawnee Street Bridge over the Arkansas River in south Wichita opened for good on Friday.

City workers reopened the bridge to a single lane in each direction about 9 a.m. Friday. After a few final touches, all four lanes will reopen within the next couple of weeks, said Greg Baalman, an engineer with the Wichita Public Works Department.

It’s welcome and long-awaited news for motorists in the area.

“Our long national nightmare is over,” said south Wichita resident Kevin Chisham, echoing President Ford’s famous statement after the Watergate crisis.

Chisham lives near the corner of Broadway and Pawnee and has to cross the river to get to his chiropractor, his pharmacy and the area’s main eating and shopping area.

“If you want fast food in this part of town, it’s Pawnee and Seneca,” he said. But from where he lives, it was a two-mile detour in either direction while the bridge was out.

Even Public Works felt the pinch from the bridge closure. The Department’s Central Maintenance Facility is on South McLean, a few blocks north of the bridge.

“It’s been kind of a hassle for everyone involved,” Baalman said.

The city started work on the bridge in spring of 2016. But the project was delayed a couple of months last summer after biologists discovered about 100 nests of barn swallows, federally protected migratory birds known for their distinctive cobalt-blue upper plumage, tawny breasts and forked tails.

When the chicks left the nest and construction resumed, engineers discovered the bridge abutments were unexpectedly badly corroded. What was planned as a relatively simple resurfacing project turned into major reconstruction, Baalman said.

The price tag grew from an original estimate of $2.4 million to $3.5 million, he said.

“It’s still probably cheaper than building a whole new bridge,” he said.

On Friday, workers were grading the riverbanks around the bridge for landscaping and finishing up some newly laid sidewalks. The final push starts next Tuesday when a shipment of neoprene rubber will arrive and workers can start filling in the bridge’s expansion joints, Baalman said.

They can do that a lane at a time so the bridge will stay open through the rest of the project, he said.

This story was originally published August 18, 2017 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Bird-delayed Pawnee Street Bridge reopens for good."