SALISBURY — The city of Salisbury will host an update session on the East Fisher Street bridge at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 10. The session will be held at Salisbury City Hall, located at 217 S. Main St., in the city council chambers.

The wooden bridge, located in between South Lee and South Long streets, has been closed since late 2021, when it was closed to allow the North Carolina Department of Transportation to make repairs to bring the bridge up to national standards. That closure was based on an inspection performed in 2020 which revealed that improvements were needed to the bent footing and timber piles that supported the bridge as well as the steel beams, timber floor and sidewalk.

During a round of improvements in November of 2021, NCDOT crews removed the timber floor and noticed that there was significant and unexpected deterioration to the steel I-beams that spanned the railroad, said Salisbury Public Works Director Chris Tester. The city subsequently closed the bridge to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but reopened the bridge in March of 2022 to pedestrian traffic after receiving a structural engineering report that stated the bridge was safe for pedestrians. The report stated that the bridge had a load rating of four tons, which was confirmed as unsafe for vehicular traffic.

The report had a lifespan of five years, said Tester, so a new report in three years may reveal that the bridge is unsafe for pedestrians or may even be unable to support itself.

An option that was floated when the bridge was initially shut down in 2022 was to reconstruct the bridge through replacement of the I-beams. However, because the replacement would be considered rehabilitation rather than maintenance, Tester said that the city would be required to bring the bridge into compliance with modern railroad standards, which state that the bridge would need to be at least 10 feet higher. The cost for that project would be at least $800,000, said Tester. However, that figure does not include the cost of extending the bridge closer to South Lee and South Long streets, which the project would also require.

The city formed a task force to work towards determining the future of the bridge, which included Downtown Salisbury Inc. as well as the public works, engineering, planning and communications departments. The city also contracted with the Summit Design and Engineering Services firm, who analyzed the options available to the city.

The information session will include an update from Tester and Summit Design and Engineering Services on the options, which Tester said included reopening the bridge for vehicular traffic, converting it to only allow pedestrian traffic and more. The firm will also give its recommendation and provide more information on it.

Sada Stewart Troutman, Downtown Salisbury Inc. director and former executive director of the Historic Salisbury Foundation, previously told the Salisbury Post that the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and 1860s Civil War Prison Camp drawings show that there has been some form of bridge presence over the tracks on Innes and Fisher streets since the mid- to late-1800s, likely when the railroad came through in the 1850s. Sanborn maps are detailed depictions of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries.