Motorists will have to wait a little while longer yet to access the East Hardy Street bridge, which was optimistically expected to re-open this week after more than three months of repair work.
Although officials hesitate to give an exact opening date for the bridge that connects Petal and Hattiesburg over the Leaf River, members of the Forrest County Board of Supervisors say the work is very close to completion. According to a May 3 post on the supervisors’ Facebook page, despite some inclement weather over the past week, the guardrails on the bridge are finished and workers are putting the “finishing touches” on the project.
Some other items that have been recently undertaken include, but are not limited to:
- The grading, forming and pouring of sections of sidewalk on the Petal and Hattiesburg sides;
- The grassing of some areas outside of the roadway;
- The completion of the base asphalt paving;
- The forming and pouring of the last sections of the barrier rail over the finger joints; along with the completion of concrete pouring on the bridge; and
- The grading of the site outside of the curb in preparation for grassing on the Petal and Hattiesburg sides.
This week, workers are expected to spend time on pouring the colored stamped concrete on the side of the curb islands; removing the overhang forms on the bridge; grinding the bridge deck where required for the proper finish; and grading and seeding areas outside of the curb and sidewalk.
“(This) week, when they grind the bridge deck, they’ll use a machine called a prosilotraph that will show workers where and how much grinding the deck requires, which will determine how much longer it will take, depending on the amount needed done,” the post states.
The bridge has been closed to traffic since January 22, when it was shut down to allow drainage work and other measures.
However, some upcoming drainage work just south of Carterville Road in Petal will necessitate a closure of a small portion of South Main Street once work on the bridge is complete. That closure, which will take place along South Main from the red light at Carterville Road to Dawson Cutoff, is expected to last approximately a month.
Terri Bell, who serves as president of the Forrest County Board of Supervisors, said work could be completed while the bridge project progresses, but that measure would have made it more difficult for the businesses in that area, including the MJ Discount convenience store and Cochran’s Muffler and Auto Shop.
“We wanted to keep these businesses as accessible to traffic as we could,” she said in a previous story. “We feel like this way, people can get to them, because we’ve poured driveways to them, so people can get to them while we’re in this last phase of the drainage on the Petal side.”
Officials are currently working to complete a new bridge adjacent to the current bridge, which will replace the structure that has connected Hattiesburg and Petal for more than 70 years.
Officials had originally considered demolishing the current bridge, but after learning that endeavor would cost approximately $1 million, the decision was made to leave the structure and transform it into a pedestrian bridge. The funds for that project will come from the Leaf and Bouie Redevelopment District, which was recently established to take the taxes from each side of the Leaf and Bouie rivers and reinvest them back into those areas of Hattiesburg, Petal and Forrest County.
“We have that district set up down there, and that’s bringing in some revenue for the second or third year,” said David Hogan, former president of the Forrest County Board of Supervisors, in a previous story. “So we’ll have some money built up to do some stuff to the old bridge once it’s not in use anymore.
“It’s going to be a destination point. There will be a walking path and some lighting, and we’ll probably paint it during events.”
With the help of matching grants from the United States Department of Transportation, officials from Petal, Forrest County and Hattiesburg are working to put forward matching grants to make a walking path possible on the bridge. The funds would come from the department of transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity discretionary grant program for 2024, which is designed to help communities around the country carry out projects with significant local or regional impact.
“I’m extremely excited about taking this step forward for the city to partner with Forrest County and the City of Petal to make the old East Hardy bridge an asset to our entire community,” Hattiesburg City Council president Jeffrey George said in a previous story. “I think the potential addition of this pedestrian path will help us continue to expand outdoor recreation opportunities and will further our mission to realize the Leaf River as an asset to our city.”
