Chattanooga to replace aging Wilcox Bridge with support of $25 million federal grant

Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Drivers pass over damaged areas on the Wilcox Boulevard Bridge on Friday. The bridge is due for $54.5 million of work.
Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / Drivers pass over damaged areas on the Wilcox Boulevard Bridge on Friday. The bridge is due for $54.5 million of work.

Chattanooga is receiving $25 million from the federal government to replace the Wilcox Boulevard Bridge, a 70-year-old structure spanning the Norfolk Southern DeButts Railyard that city officials say can no longer support large emergency vehicles or semi-trucks.

The project is one of 166 initiatives supported this year through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability & Equity grant program, which received funding from President Joe Biden's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

"For years, the deteriorating Wilcox Boulevard Bridge, where we stand today, has decreased access to essential services for some of Chattanooga's most vulnerable neighborhoods and has limited the access point for one of our region's most critical national freight assets: the Norfolk Southern DeButts Railyard," State Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, D-Chattanooga, said during a news conference Friday. "The historic investment to replace and improve the bridge will shape the future of not only the nearby East Chattanooga communities, but also the entire region."

City Transportation Engineer Katie Snyder said the project has an estimated price tag of $54.5 million. Of that, $25 million will come from the grant, $10 million each from the city and Norfolk Southern, $5 million from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and $500,000 from Hamilton County. The remainder will come from other local and federal funding sources available for transportation.

Snyder said officials are aiming to advertise the project for construction near the end of 2025.

"We've got a lot of work to do before we can start turning dirt," Snyder said. "We've got to get through environmental clearance; we have to get our design fully coordinated with the railroad, with the city, with the state. So that will take some time."

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly said the city had to restrict the weight of the bridge after an inspection last year, which he said had an immediate impact on tens of thousands of people across the region.

Kelly said semi-trucks can no longer use the bridge to access local businesses, city buses have to find another route around, and the Chattanooga Fire Department can't send a fully loaded fire truck across the structure, which adds several minutes to response times for some residents.

"Within a few years, if we didn't act fast, we were going to have to close this bridge to all vehicles altogether, which is unthinkable very frankly," Kelly said. "Thanks to the $25 million RAISE grant award that we're celebrating today, we have the opportunity to design and build a new solution."

Chattanooga Fire Chief Phil Hyman said the impact on emergency response times can range from seconds to multiple minutes depending on the location.

"In this kind of business, seconds matter, so to us, a couple seconds' difference is a huge impact on response times," he said.

Snyder said officials plan to build the new bridge beside the existing structure so they can maintain some lanes of traffic throughout most of the construction process.

According to a news release from the city, the new bridge will be engineered to modern standards for structural integrity and will support buses, emergency vehicles, increased vehicular traffic and multimodal freight for future economic activity in East Chattanooga.

The new four-lane bridge will include the addition of a 12 1/2-foot shared-use path, which will ultimately provide access to the Tennessee Riverwalk through a new pedestrian and bike connection the city plans to develop in the coming years.

"This will help transform this part of the city, adding access to one of our city's greatest amenities, all while improving pedestrian safety and restoring the ability for our first responders to reach an emergency quickly," Kelly said. "This bridge may not be as beautiful or sexy as some others that we like to celebrate in Chattanooga, but it is no less important.

"This is a big deal, and I have to say this transformative project would not be possible at all without the leadership of President Biden and the bipartisan coalition that recently passed the infrastructure legislation that funded this historic $25 million infrastructure investment in our community."

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure package passed in November 2021, largely along party lines. Although a handful of Republicans supported it in Congress, none were from Tennessee or Georgia.

Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6249. Follow him on Twitter @flavid_doyd.

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