City Tables Votes on Demolition of Pedestrian Bridge As Residents Rally to Save It

The Tuscaloosa City Council punted this week on whether to demolish an aging pedestrian bridge over Veterans Memorial Parkway as nearby residents rally together in a push to preserve it.

As the Thread first reported, the city council is considering spending more than $500,000 to tear down the decades-old bridge.

Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said the work required to extend the useful life of the bridge would exceed $2 million, and Councilman John Faile, who represents that area of the city, said no one really uses the pedestrian bridge anymore. City leaders said a traffic count showed less than 30 people crossing the bridge in a month.

The city's projects committee last week voted to recommend demolishing the bridge and forwarded the matter to the full seven-member council, which was poised to vote on it this Tuesday but ultimately tabled it for two weeks after residents raised concerns about seeing the bridge removed.

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The decision to come back to the matter later in March gave residents time to organize their protests and on Wednesday afternoon, a group of them over Veterans Memorial Parkway with signs pleading to "Save Our Bridge."

One nearby resident who asked not to be identified by name told the Thread that the bridge once served the many families living in Cherokee Hills, Arcadia, Mayfair and other neighborhoods as they walked or bicycled with their kids to the nearby Arcadia Elementary School.

The resident said the bridge is in a cycle of decreased use because the average age of homeowners in the area is high right now and few have students at the school, but even now there are signs that things are changing as young families move into homes as they become available.

"This thing, the bridge, it was built to last a long time, and the waves of generations are just that - they're waves, not a steady line," she said. "Just because we don't have a great number of children walking across the bridge now doesn't mean we never will. But we never will if they tear it down!"

The resident noted how much of the city's public messaging as it rebuilt following the April 2011 tornado centered on connectivity and walkability, and that tearing down this pedestrian bridge goes against both tenets.

The city council will reconsider whether to contract with Duncan Coker, P.C. to demolish the bridge later this month, during their regularly scheduled March 19th meeting.

For more on the matter as it develops, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.