Structural damage forces closure of Mount Vernon overpasses

Mount Vernon is closing two overpasses in the southeast section of the city due to structural damage cited by the state Department of Transportation.

The overpasses are about two blocks apart on South Fulton Avenue and East Third Street and their closure will force disruption to traffic on those major routes through the city.

Beginning at noon on Friday, Third Street will be closed just east of Fulton between Hartford and Langdon Avenues, Fulton Avenue will be closed from Third Street to Beekman Avenue.

The overpasses cover industrial yards on the site of the old New York, Westchester and Boston Railway, which operated between 1912 and 1937. The former East Third Street Station was at that location before it was torn down seven years ago.

City officials are working with Westchester County, Bee-Line officials and emergency service agencies to determine detours for buses and ambulances.

“We are acting to protect public safety,” Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard said in a statement. “We know this is a heavily trafficked route for private and commercial vehicles and the planned detours will cause some inconvenience, but based on the state’s structural reports, we cannot take the risk of road failureunder the continued passage of overweight vehicles."

Bridge closed: Mount Vernon bridge closed to vehicle traffic

She said decades of temporary fixes had failed to overcome "the city’s historic underinvestment in its infrastructure."

"As the mayor of these legacy problems, I cannot consciously ignore these dangers as they continue to emerge, much to our collective exasperation,” Patterson-Howard said in the statement.

The DOT inspection was conducted on Dec. 27 and the red flag notices issued a week ago. Because of temporary fixes in which replacement beams constinuously deteriorated, the state last year began inspecting the sites on a quarterly basis rather than once a year.

Damani Bush, commissioner of the city's Department of Public Works, said the city would be including long-term improvements to the bridge in capital and infrastructure plans and that officials are researching funding sources for the work. No figure was provided for the expected cost of the project.

"There is no easy solution to replacing century-old underground supports on the remnants of a 1912structure," Bush said in the statement.

In the past the city has used temporary fixes like timber beams and shims to shore up each overpass. It is now working with state DOT engineers to devise a plan to install permanent steel columns.

But former Mayor Richard Thomas, who is planning to challenge Patterson-Howard in this year's Democratic primary, criticized her for failing to fund such infrastructure improvements in the 2023 budget.

He also suggested there has been no enforcement of overweight vehicle rules since the disbanding of a police traffic unit he started that was specifically tasked to deal with that issue.

The mayor and Bush said the trouble with the overpasses was not limited to the traffic that travels over them but the lack of any significant fixes under them as a result of deterioration from not just traffic but also environmental conditions. She said Thomas' criticism was "just talk" at the start of what she referred to as "silly season" - or election year - and questioned what his administration ever did to budget for improvements to the two overpasses.

Thomas said it was one of the projects he had hoped could be addressed in his proposed allocations for capital projects that were not approved by the city council. Mark Ederer, who was DPW commissioner under Thomas, acknowledged Thursday that funding was never available for more than temporary fixes.

Ederer said that when serious structural damage was found on the column below Third Street, it was shored up with beams, the DOT signed off on the fix, and the city reduced the weight limit for vehicles on that stretch of the road.

Those sign offs have continued but the current red flag conditions have lowered the load-bearing capacity to just three tons on Third Street and five tons on Fulton Avenue. A typical SUV weighs 3 tons, Bush said, a fire truck weighs 20 to 35 tons, a school bus weighs 12 tons and a sanitation truck weighs 25 tons.

Bush said Thursday night on a Facebook presentation that to get the DOT to deactivate the red flag notices, steel beams must be installed. To do that, the temporary shoring must be removed, during which time the road would be unable to bear any vehicle traffic. Pedestrians would still be allowed on the overpasses.

The expected cost to repair the supporting structures was not provided and Bush said he would not know for a few months how long the closures were expected to last.

He outlined what residents and motorists should expect in the coming months:

• Increased congestion initially

• Changed traffic patterns

• New bus stops on South Union and South Franklin avenues

• More "No Parking" areas

• Construction noise

• Increased enforcement of "Double Parking" and "No Parking" restrictions

Several parking spaces near homes and businesses will be lost due to the traffic changes and construction. Robin Mack, the city's director of business development, said arrangements have been made for free parking in the lot of the vacant Western Beef supermarket on Fulton Avenue. That lot will not be for commercial trucks but for residents and shoppers.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon closing overpass at Fulton Avenue and Third Street