St. Jacob Township Bridge to be replaced with box culverts

By Randy Pierce • Legislation calling for preliminary engineering services related to the replacement of an old, deteriorated, unnamed bridge carrying Cypress Road over Lake Fork Creek in St. Jacob Township has been approved by the Madison County Board Transportation Committee and is expected to move forward to the full board for final approval next Wednesday, May 20.

As explained to that committee, chaired by Bobby Ross of St. Jacob, last week, by the county’s highway department senior engineer, Brent Lyons, this agreement with Oates Associates Inc., which has four offices, including one in Collinsville, is for the design work to replace the bridge, described by him as being small and single-span, with a new configuration of consisting of a double box culvert.

Box culverts are four-sided precast or cast-in-place concrete structures used for water conveyance, underpasses, bridges and utility applications, offering strength, durability and versatility.

Rectangular or square, the culverts will be designed to provide passage of the creek water under Cypress Road and represent a much less expensive approach to this matter, according to Lyons, than pursuing a complete replacement of the bridge.

“When we can get away with doing box culverts,” Lyons told the committee, “that’s kind of the route we typically like to go.”

The Oates team will take care of all the preparation work to get this project ready for a bid letting, Lyons noted, then that later aspect of the logistics will be handled by the highway department. 

 “It doesn’t need to be a bridge,” Lyons added, “so that’s why we were able to downsize to a double box culvert.”