Bigfork bridge options debated

Repair options have been narrowed for the historic Swan River Bridge in Bigfork, but the favored route comes with the largest price tag.

The Swan River Bridge Steering Committee met with roughly 50 people Tuesday night at Bigfork Elementary School to present seven options for the iconic but decaying bridge.

Due to corrosion, the bridge has a three-ton load limit — the lowest limit acceptable before closure.

The steering committee, made up of Montana Department of Transportation officials, Bigfork residents and engineers from KLJ Engineering, presented the options.

Kathy Harris with KLJ Engineering said a recent study determined that 1,000 people cross the bridge a day — and that number triples during the summer season, she said.

“This is something that needs attention, quick,” Harris said before the presentation kicked off. “And it’s important to look at all the options, because there’s a lot of competition for state bridge funds and there are a lot of old bridges out there in need of repair.”

The bridge is owned by the county. But with limited county bridge money, County Public Works Director David Prunty said bridge repairs will largely depend on money from the state Department of Transportation.

“We have a bridge budget that’s less than what this bridge would cost,” Prunty said.

Options included doing nothing to the bridge, replacing it or rehabilitating what was there.

Some people in the crowd wanted to let the bridge stay as is, but engineers warned the span would remain usable only another five years at most if repairs are not made.

Others said rehabilitation would be the best option, which would most likely maintain the bridge’s historic designation that residents secured roughly two years after officials warned the bridge was deteriorating.

Carol Bronson said she and many other people can remember the bridge before the village became a tourist spot.

“I personally think that the rehabilitation is important because preserving its historical [designation] affects everyone’s property values and is an important part of Bigfork,” she said.

While officials said they didn’t want to give exact estimates, they said rehabilitation would be the most expensive option and the most difficult to get fully funded.

Community member Kathryn Berg pointed to the new one-lane steel girder proposal as a compromise. The bridge would carry the road’s load, but keep the old steel truss to maintain its historic appearance.

“Maybe the historical designation has served its purpose in terms of getting us to this point where we have this level of consideration,” Berg said.

She said she believed the designation brought the community and officials together to find compromises, compared to past bridge projects where she said government departments never asked for community input.

She said many of those projects “majored in ugly.” The audience laughed as Berg described concrete roads replacing classic bridges and guardrails leading “to nowhere.”

Walter Kuhn, a Bigfork resident and steering committee member, said it would be difficult to continue the historic listing because of the money it would take to rehabilitate the bridge.

He said the option Berg favored represented a middle ground with which he was comfortable.

“If you say, ‘The only option I want is the rehab,’ ... the state might say, ‘We’re not funding that,’” Kuhn said. “What we want to do is get the best bang for our buck. We want to keep that bridge looking as close to its original look as we can, but get it past the state.”