Anyone want to adopt a bridge?
That would seem like one way to save the Elgin/Babocomari Bridge, an integral span for local travelers between Highway 82 and Lower/Upper Elgin roads.
Built in 1922, the bridge was destined for replacement based on an federally mandated evaluation conducted by FRASERdesign of Loveland, Colo., back in 2008. FRASER gave the bridge a score of 20/100. Which set it up for replacement using federal funds.
In the meantime, Elgin resident Sue Downing stepped in with documentation on the bridge’s historical significance. The Arizona Department of Transportation’s Historic Preservation Team then conducted a reevaluation that set the score at 47/100, making it potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
As part of the potential for its qualifications for the Register, a Section 4(f) evaluation must be completed. Section 4(f) is a federal law from the U.S. Department of Transportation Act of 1966 requiring Department of Transportation agencies to avoid using historical sites for federally funded transportation projects unless there are no feasible alternatives.
Consequently, there is a call for parties interested in the maintenance and responsibility of the bridge to step up and submit a statement of interest by July 27. (Funding sources do not need to be in place by the deadline.) Interested parties can respond to Santa Cruz County, c/o Maria Altemus, 1 S. Church Aue, Suite 1400, Tucson, AZ 85701, Maria.Altemus@hdrinc.com.
Few people would dispute the bridge’s inability to withstand the contemporary traffic that traverses the one-lane span. EMT trucks/ambulances weigh between 10,000 and 14,00 pounds when empty. Rural fire trucks weigh from 20,000 to 60,000 pounds, depending on how they are loaded. And then there are construction trucks carrying rock and gravel.
The maximum load for the Elgin/Babocomari Bridge is calculated at 20,000 pounds.
“That’s kind of their standard operation procedure,” said William Collins, National Register of Historic Places Program Coordinator, Arizona State Historic Preservation Office. “They want to unload that bridge so they don’t have to maintain it, and so they have their new bridge in there. They aren’t going to maintain it themselves, so if another entity doesn’t step up to do it, it’s going to go.”
Downing’s goal is to preserve the bridge for pedestrians and bicycles with a local park created there in keeping with the county’s interest of preserving historic landmarks. At one time, according to Terri Basinger of the Bowman-Stradling Historic Center in Sonoita, Elgin had a general store, hay warehouse, 14-room hotel, schoolhouse, cemetery, post office, library and gas station. Today the Elgin/Babocomari Bridge is the last vestige of that past.
It is not a new procedure for ADOT to propose a bridge adoption process. To the recollection of Jerry Cannon, bridge engineer and author of Arizona’s Historic Bridges, there has been only one other time in Arizona history that a bridge was “adopted” — the Cameron Suspension Bridge that spans the Little Colorado River in Northern Arizona. Opened to traffic in 1911, the bridge closed in 1959 — sold to the Four Corners Pipeline Company to carry a natural gas pipeline. That bridge is currently owned by Questar Southern Trails Pipeline and still stands.
The newer, modern span— the Navajo Code Talker Jimmie Preston Memorial Bridge — was completed in 2016 and sits adjacent to the original structure, connecting travelers on U.S. Highway 89 to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Indian Reservation.