On February 16, 2011 City of Rochester engineers gave a presentation at the Phillis Wheatley Community Library to update the community and to answer question about plans for converting the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Bridge over the Genesee River to a Rails-to-Trails pedestrian bridge.  When I arrived at 7:45pm many people were still discussing the renderings of the project with the engineers.  The bridge would become part of the City's shared use walking and biking trails which already follow both sides of the river from downtown to Genesee Valley Park.  The Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Bridge spans the Genesee River connecting the Genesee Riverway  Trail and the Plymouth/Exchange neighborhood on the west bank to the Genesee River Trail, Bausch & Lomb Park, and the University of Rochester River Campus on the east bank. This can be seen in this aerial views below.  Besides adding a beautiful view of downtown and the Brooks Landing area to people using the trail for recreation, it would also significantly shorten the pedestrian and bike commutes to the U of R from parts of the PLEX neighborhood.  This crossing would provide an at-grade travese of the river from the railroad bed trail on the north side of the bridge to the U of R campus on the south.  This avoids having to drop down to near river level along the Genesee River trail going down to the existing foot bridge at Brooks Landing then climbing back up over the river to the U of R campus.  

I discussed the features of the project with Thomas Hack (below right), one of the City of Rochester engineers on the project.  For the conversion, repairs would first be done to the existing railroad bridge support structure to stabilize it, then a concrete bridge deck would be installed across the eight spans of the bridge.  These would include railings similar to the ones on the Brooks Landing foot bridge.  The bridge had been built with spans 4 and 5 having side support beams above the railroad deck to provide more clearance for boat traffic below.  These would obstruct the view of the river to foot and bike travelers.  To still provide a good view over the bridge structural beams, the concrete deck would be raised about two feet on spans 4 and 5 and gently ramped on spans 3 and 6.

An elevation rendering of the eight spans of the bridge is shown below.  Unfortunately at present there is not enough money in the budgeted to permit the installations of lights on the bridge such as are provided on the Brooks Landing foot bridge.  These may be added later if and when money becomes available.

Among the familiar faces I saw there were John Curran in the yellow sweater.  He is a local history buff and is very involved in the responsible preservation and restoration of structures and habitat in the area. 

DeWain Feller, president of the 19th Ward Community Association (left) also stopped by to look at the plans.

Holly Barrett, the City structural engineer who organized this presentation and is the Project Manager, provided Location19 with the renderings shown at the February 16 event in this pdf: Erie Lackawanna Public Meeting.pdf   The City's web site about the project can be found at:  http://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589946116 .  Some renderings and historical information about the areas involved with this project had previously been provided to us by John Curran and posted in the calendar entry for this event.  This can be found in the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Bridge Conversion - Public Meeting announcement.

I look forward to the start of this project this year and the opportunity to bike across this re-purposed bridge.