Bridging the Divide

Some years ago the deer camp crew convened by fireside and with the inspiration of adult beverages brainstormed a list of projects to make our hunting experience more positive.

The list included any number of things and endeavors including a deer stand on a rock pile, shooting lanes, better knives for butchering, even a power hoist for hanging deer in the machine shed.  Someone even advanced a motion to discontinue drinking shots of Jägermeister following a deer kill.  Ha-ha.  Don't hold your breath.

One of the more practical ideas was the construction of a footbridge to cross Silver Creek close to the eastern property boundary. 

Long story short is that the foot bridge happened the following year and has been in continuous use ever since.

click on images to enlarge

 

I have to extend a heap of credit to my pal New Guy for engineering and building this infrastructure with the assistance of Mennonite. 

To be fair it is constructed of surplus parts. Yup, leftovers.  

Lumber retrieved from the barn including rebar and hardware from the machine shed and rocks from the ubiquitous rock piles that are everywhere.  DeWalt and hand tools too.

This was August of 2017.

A few days ago the girls and I were exploring that portion of the creek and took a few moments to recommbobulate the bridge which was a wee bit catawampus from the winter ice jams.  Easy-peasy.

New Guy reminded me that it was engineered to be removed seasonally.

Note to self.  Raise the foot bridge in December.....

How to Sensibly Amortize Your Transportation Costs

click on the image for a closer look
 

That is not OJ on a car chase.  That is my 2007 GMC Acadia crossing the Ohio River on the Abraham Lincoln Bridge between Kentucky and Indiana – downtown Louisville to be exact.  

Last month I posted some history about the Ohio River Bridges Project - namely the construction of two new Ohio River bridges. The Abraham Lincoln Bridge opened in December of 2015 and is located in downtown Louisville and slightly upstream from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge – completed in 1963 as part of the Interstate 65 project. 

This happens to be a toll bridge – you have to pay a toll for the privilege of crossing.  However, there is no toll collector or toll booth.  If you happen to live and commute frequently on a toll road you likely have a transponder in your vehicle for the convenient electronic payment of your road use from a prepaid account.  Crossing the bridge your transponder will communicate with the sensor and you're toll is collected electronically.  Yet if you’re me – from Wisconsin – where we do not have toll roads how do you pay if there’s no toll collector there to collect your money and you do not have a transponder-equipped automobile? 

There is RiverLink.   This allows customers who cross a bridge to register their license plate and link it to a prepaid account.  With each crossing, cameras will recognize the license plate and automatically deduct the proper toll from the account.  

If you’re simply passing-thru like me – the vehicle’s license plate is photographed and the owner is sent an invoice in the mail. Associated with this method are the highest of tolls - as administrative costs are greater. 

The bottom line is a transponder-equipped passenger vehicle pays $2 per crossing, camera recognition will cost you $3 and if you’re an unregistered out of towner - $4.  The invoice above arrived in the mail the other day - $8 for a round trip. 

This technology interests me and if you think about it maybe the future funding of all roadways will somehow be linked to vehicles that come from the factory with a transponder.

How to Sensibly Amortize Your Transportation Costs

click on images to enlarge

Yesterday the 2007 GMC Acadia flipped to 165,000 miles on our road trip to the Gulf Coast and back.  That’s a lot of miles on a vehicle that is getting a bit long in the tooth.  Nevertheless, the amortized cost per mile has been quite reasonable by my estimation.  And with fingers crossed won't increase and will hopefully decline.  Current plans are to drive this beast until the wheels fall-off.  Or retirement.  Whichever comes first.  All of which is subject to change at a moment’s notice or on a personal whim.  Bottom line is Jill and I want to make sure we squeeze every last nickle of value out of a depleting asset.

In any event, just about the same time the odometer flipped we crossed this bridge.  The observant reader will notice the dearth of traffic.  We crossed this bridge twice - traveling south and returning north.  And we made the same observation each time.  Wide-open spaces.  For context about this uncongested crossing some background is in order.  

The Ohio River Bridges Project was a transportation project involving the reconstruction of the Kennedy Interchange and the construction of two new Ohio River bridges. The Abraham Lincoln Bridge opened in December of 2015 and is located in downtown Louisville and slightly upstream from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge – completed in 1963 as part of the Interstate 65 project.   This is the Kennedy Bridge on the left and the new Abraham Lincoln Bridge on the right.   

The second bridge – the Lewis and Clark Bridge - opened in December of 2016 connecting Indiana SR 265 and the Kentucky segment of I-265 (via KY-841) between Louisville's East end and Utica, Indiana.  

The Ohio River Bridges project weighed-in at a total cost of $2.6 billion and has been widely criticized for its outrageous expense and for degrading the connection between downtown Louisville and the riverfront.  Both bridges are supported by tolls.  Unfortunately the traffic counts on both are down and nowhere near the traffic projections used to ‘sell’ the project.  It will be interesting to see if future traffic counts rise to a level sufficient to cover the bonding costs of $2,600,000,000.    -Wikipedia

You can learn more about the economics of this issue here.

Bridges of Door County

click on the bridge span to enlarge

This is the Oregon Street bridge in Sturgeon Bay.  It is a concrete deck girder bridge over the water on State Highway 42-57 (Business Route).  Built in 2008 it was constructed with more clearance than the Michigan Street Bridge which would reduce the number of openings.  Nevertheless, the bridge needs to be raised to allow passage of sailboats with their tall masts.    

This is my bridge over Silver Creek.  It was constructed in 2017 by my pals – New Guy and Mennonite of scrap lumber and rocks.  It is tall enough to allow the passage of an ordinary dog underneath but is capable of being raised and removed during high water events.   

Raising a toast to the reuse of found materials and American ingenuity.  This is what made America great.

Bridge to Nowhere

Spotted a convoy of Spancrete precast bridge parts rolling down the highway the other day.  

Southbound on I-43 north of Sheboygan.

click on image to enlarge

Wondered where they're headed.  

Best guess is the Zoo Interchange project in Milwaukee County.  If anyone knows otherwise - let me know...