The Athens County Engineer is responsible for bridges on township roads of 10’ span or longer. This Troy Township bridge on Wildman Road was closed in 2017 after it was inspected. The bridge was not eligible for grant funding, located in a rural area with only one cabin before you hit the Washington County Line. We borrowed $ 500,000 to build 5 bridges in 2019, so it was imperative that we start early in the year. Athens County Crews started construction on February 4th. We removed the existing “superstructure”- steel beams and deck- and hammered out the top of one abutment and removed the top layer of cut sandstone on the other then formed and poured concrete caps. You can see the epoxy coated rebar (greenish) in the foreground on the abutment in the distance. John Brunton is the bridge superintendent in charge of building this bridge superstructure. We hired Ohio Concrete Sawing of Columbus to saw the concrete for $1400 and bought a prefabricated steel beam bridge from U.S. Bridge Company for $33,645. The new bridge has a 45 ton load rating and completely meets the need for this rural area with very little traffic, at a fraction of the cost of a completely new structure. Using our own crews and making good investments allows us to accomplish many projects with limited resources.