Will Daytona’s aging Main Street span be replaced? Volusia will cross that bridge when there’s financing

Dec. 04--DAYTONA BEACH -- Dustin Stock works alone in a usually quiet glass box overlooking the Halifax River. His job as a bridge tender comes with so much downtime that a book or a laptop accompanies his eight-hour shifts.

But about 10 times a day, or roughly 4,000 times a year, the voice of a ship's captain comes through the radio on a table in front of him, breaking the silence.

"Main Street bridge, come in Main Street bridge." The voice on this Thursday morning came from within a vessel named Magic Dragon less than a mile to the south. It was too tall to sail beneath the structure and its captain needed clearance.

With an assortment of buttons and switches at his disposal, Stock, a musician by night, brought life and music to the nearly 60-year-old drawbridge. Its horn sang out a warning chorus to passing motorists. Arms, like that of an orchestra conductor, swung down to block the roadway to vehicles. Then the bridge, built in 1959, opened upward at its midsection with a basslike moan as if waking from a deep slumber. Six-hundred tons of steel, reaching toward the sky.

It's a scene that's vanishing from many roads and waterways. While drawbridges are still being built today, more and more aging movable bridges across the country, and locally, are being replaced with the high-arcing, fixed variety, which are cheaper to build, maintain -- saving tax dollars -- and result in fewer traffic delays.

Volusia County demolished its Orange Avenue drawbridge last year and its $80 million replacement won't require a tender when it opens in 2019. The Main Street bridge, about a mile to the north, costs the county $300,000 a year to operate and staff 24 hours a day. Some argue that it's long overdue a replacement of its own. Crossed by about 7,000 vehicles per day, it received a rating of "functionally obsolete" with a sufficiency rating of 57 out of 100 in its most recent inspection report from the Florida Department of Transportation. Bridges in Volusia and Flagler counties on average score 86, on par with the state average.

According to federal guidelines, bridges must score below 50 in order to be eligible for funding from the Federal Highway Administration. The county closed the bridge for repairs in 2011, 2014 and 2015 totaling $635,000. The county is also currently in the midst of replacing the bridge fender system, for a cost of $1.32 million.

While the state inspects the bridge annually, instead of the industry-standard every three years, it's still among the lowest scoring bridges locally not slated for a rebuild. The Turnbull Bay Bridge and the Barracuda Bridge over the Brando Canal in New Smyrna Beach are rated at 11 and 12, respectively, but funding has been earmarked for replacements. The Orange Avenue bridge, at the time of its demolition, was rated 31.

Money for road projects is already so tight that elected leaders are considering a sales tax referendum in 2018. County Manager Jim Dinneen said any discussion involving the Main Street span will have to wait.

"There's nothing on the drawing board for the (Main Street) bridge right now, but someday we will have to make a decision," Dinneen said, adding that the bridge is old and expensive to run, but that whatever happens should wait until after the Orange Avenue bridge is complete. "We wouldn't want to do two bridges at once. It would disrupt traffic too much."

How long can it afford to wait?

According to the National Bridge Inventory Database, "functionally obsolete" means the bridge doesn't have enough lanes to accommodate the traffic flow. It may be a drawbridge on a congested highway, or it may not have space for emergency shoulders. The term does not communicate anything of a structural nature.

Given a copy of the latest inspection reports for the Main Street bridge conducted in April for each of the past three years, Andy Herrmann, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, concluded: It needs work.

He noted that while the deck, superstructure and substructure received a 5 rating, which is considered OK by industry standards, it received a performance rating of 3. That means it requires corrective action, Herrmann said.

"It's flagged that it needs to be watched," he said, adding that it's good that state transportation engineers are monitoring its status annually. "They are keeping a closer eye on it. The state is definitely taking the right course to maintain safety by looking at it more frequently."

Drawbridges coming down

Stock has been a bridge tender on Main Street for 14 years. His office is a rectangle with a steep ladder leading to the gears and guts of the steel giant below. The mechanism lifts two leafs that weigh 300 tons a piece, but Stock, one of 10 tenders employed at the bridge, hasn't seen any problems during his watch, aside from that one time a boat sped through and bumped its mast.

The captain didn't realize how tall his boat was or how low the bridge. He didn't bother to radio in to a tender and ask either.

"He just whizzed right through," Stock said. "He lost a chunk of his boat. Most people aren't that careless."

With mechanical equipment dating to the 1950s or earlier, a lot can go wrong with a bascule bridge. In 2012, the Orange Avenue bridge was stuck open for more than a week when a control box, which lifted the east and west trusses, malfunctioned. Earlier this year in New Jersey, a drawbridge began to open with a moving car still on it, resulting in a narrow escape that made national news.

Things break. Technology fails. City, county and state leaders are forced to make a decision: keep the drawbridge and deal with the constant upkeep, or make it a high-rise.

Many are moving toward the high-rise because it's much cheaper and doesn't require routine maintenance.

Volusia's drawbridges are dwindling, too. In 2015, the state decided that the bascule Whitehair bridge on State Road 44 in DeLand would be replaced by a fixed bridge that would cost about 100 times less to maintain, according to a study. That $22 million project is expected to be finished by 2022, according to the transportation department.

With the Orange Avenue bridge construction underway, that leaves three other drawbridges in Volusia County, not counting Main Street.

FDOT, for $15 million, contracts out operations of its drawbridges, including one on State Road 44 in Astor. The Coast Guard runs operations at the North Causeway bridge in New Smyrna Beach, which crosses the Indian River at Flagler Avenue.

The other drawbridge run by Volusia County is at Highbridge Road in Ormond Beach, near the Flagler County line. Commonly called the Knox Bridge, it garnered a safety score of 60 on its last inspection.

It also costs the county $300,000 a year to staff and operate, but like many drawbridges across the country, a fixed bridge, which requires more room to build high inclines, just wouldn't work there. Too narrow.

That means drawbridges aren't likely to disappear completely from Volusia any time soon.

'That sucker is old'

But the Main Street bridge has a lot working against it, and not just age or cost. Its location is another reason why its days could be numbered. It connects two areas of Daytona Beach that city and county officials are working to revitalize.

To the west: Beach Street, where insurance giant Brown & Brown plans to open a 10-story headquarters that will bring more than 600 workers to the downtown region. To the east: Main Street, a long-languished stretch of road between the bridge and the ocean that's lined with biker bars and empty parking lots. It's the focus of a recently formed beachside redevelopment committee.

With the hope and promise of development on the surrounding streetscapes, Volusia County Council member Billie Wheeler says the bridge at the center of it all should keep up with the changes.

"That sucker is old," said Wheeler, who represents Daytona Beach. "It needs work. Period."

Ratings and traffic counts for all bridges in Volusia and Flagler counties:

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