Scotch Creek bridge needs to quickly be replaced

By Kevin O’Brien

The rapidly deteriorating condition of the Scotch Creek bridge on CTH N has prompted Marathon County officials to pursue a special construction process that would allow the bridge to be replaced as soon as next year.

To allow the project to move forward, county supervisors are being asked to approve a resolution on Thursday that will schedule a bridge replacement for 2024, with funding coming from the county’s capital improvement fund.

Highway commissioner Jim Griesbach told the Infrastructure Committee last week that the “sufficiency rating” for the Scotch Creek Bridge had dropped from 58 in 2022 to 35.2 this fall (on a 100-point scale), indicating that the concrete is “getting very bad.” He said the county tries to keep bridges above a 50 rating, and anything under that number is eligible for replacement under federal guidelines.

As a precautionary measure, Griesbach said orange barrels have been placed on the outside edges of the bridge to keep traffic from crossing over a vulnerable joint. The bridge was originally built in 1945 and steel beams were added in 1968 to make it wider, he said.

Located just south of Edgar in the town of Wien, the Scotch Creek Bridge is part of a major agricultural trucking route along CTH N. Griesbach said the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has asked the county to impose a 20-ton weight limit on the road, which is difficult to do for a designated truck route.

Griesbach said state funding for replacing the bridge won’t be available until 2026 or 2027, but the county has a couple options, including a process called InQuik Bridging Systems, which was recently used by Eau Claire County to replace a bridge. The InQuik company provides prefabricated modular components that can be installed within a week, he said.

Using InQuik would allow the county to bypass the DOT’s approval process and get a new bridge installed at an estimated cost of $435,400 – about $224,000 more than it would cost through the DOT’s bridge replacement program. However, by delaying the project, Greisbach said the county would have to hope that the bridge does not get any worse over the next couple of years.

“In the engineering world, hope is not a good planning tool,” he said.

Supervisor Gary Gisselman spoke in favor of the InQuik process, emphasizing the need for an expedited solution.

“For the safety of the drivers in Marathon County, I think we want to do that as quickly as possible,” he said.

Supervisor Joel Straub initially questioned spending nearly a quarter-million dollars more for the InQuik process, and asked Greisbach about “limping” the bridge through until 2026 or 2027.

“Determining how fast concrete is going to deteriorate is pretty tough,” Griesbach said.

After further discussion, committee members agreed that the project should be done next year and adopted a motion that leaves it up to the Human Resources, Finance and Personnel Committee to determine the exact funding source.