SALISBURY — Most who attended an information session on Tuesday came away agreeing that demolition was the only feasible option for the future of the East Fisher Street bridge, whether they were representatives of the city of Salisbury, residents who lived nearby or owners of nearby businesses.

The meeting on Tuesday was run by Salisbury Public Works Director Chris Tester and representatives of the consulting firm Summit Design and Engineering Services, who described all of the options ostensibly available to the city, which included repairing the bridge to allow for either vehicular or pedestrian traffic or complete removal of the bridge, which stands in between South Long and South Lee streets.

The historic bridge has been closed to vehicular traffic since September of 2021, when a crew performing needed repairs on the bridge removed the wooden decking and noticed that the steel I-beams underneath had significant deterioration, said Tester. A subsequent North Carolina Department of Transportation inspection of the bridge in 2022 stated that the bridge could hold four tons, below the six-ton minimum for vehicle traffic.

“The four-ton rating they felt was comfortable with allowing pedestrian traffic on the bridge for the term of about five years. So this was in 2022, and the inspector said ‘you got about a five-year lifespan before we would not recommend even pedestrian traffic after that,” said Tester.

Greg Dickey, an engineer for Summit, said that the most recent report from January of 2024 rated the substructure of the bridge, the portion that holds up the bridge, as a three. He said that most bridges are rated between six and seven on a scale of one through nine.

Jennifer McRoy, the engineer who has managed the project for Summit, ran through the three options and spoke to the issues the company ran into while trying to find a way to keep the bridge.

“Honestly, I’ve laid a lot of bridges out and when I looked at this it was like, wow, this is the perfect storm. It’s got the railroad, it’s got so many historic properties and no room. We tried to squeeze everything we could out of that space that we had to get all of the requirements that were needed and it just didn’t work,” said McRoy.

One of the main issues that the company and city ran into was that the level of deterioration of the beams meant that they needed to be replaced, which removes it from the definition of maintenance according to Norfolk Southern Railway and North Carolina Railroad Company, who own the two railroads underneath the bridge. Since the work would be deemed restoration, the bridge would need to be updated to current railroad standards, which would require the bridge to be approximately 9 feet higher. As the slope of the bridge is also constrained by NCDOT standards, the city would have to extend the bridge and supporting features almost all the way to both South Long and South Lee streets, said McRoy.

That extension would include retaining walls that would cut off access to the properties along the roads, including historic properties such as Noble and Kelsey Funeral Home, the Bernhardt House, the Swink Family House, “The Negro Travelers’ Green Book”-listed Safety Taxi, the Rufty-Henderson home and the Rufty-Hartline home.

Because the level of deterioration meant that the bridge likely would not be safe for pedestrian traffic in a few years, McRoy said that the same issues arose when looking into a pedestrian-only option. Add in that the bridge would have to be made to be compliant with the Americans with the Disabilities Act, and McRoy said that even pedestrian-only was likely not feasible.

Another concern was the cost of the complete renovation of the bridge. The city received an estimate of $800,000 in 2022, but that number solely included repairing the bridge to allow for vehicular traffic and did not include updating the bridge to current railroad standards.

The third option was demolition of the bridge, which would remove all features of the bridge down to the ground level. With this option, a guardrail would be installed at the terminated roadway with trees planted in front of the railing for aesthetic purposes. Because the roadway would have two additional dead-ends, there would need to be added turnouts for emergency vehicles, but Tester said that the turnouts would not affect any of the historic properties.

When asked by a resident if there was any reason for the city to choose anything other than demolition, Tester said that the impact to the surrounding properties far outweighed the small gain to the community of a pedestrian bridge.

The city and Summit have begun the process to demolish the bridge, with the city seeking a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission for the demolition. McRoy said that the city would also need approval from the two railroad companies, with Tester saying that prior approval processes have taken between 12 and 15 months. The demolition process would then take a couple months. Tester and Dickey estimated that demolition would cost approximately $1 million, with Tester saying that he is exploring options for grant funding.

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.

Tester said that the city was also looking into putting fencing around the area in order to prevent people from entering and staying underneath any remaining bridge structures. He said that the city would look to partner with neighboring properties in order to extend the fencing onto their property and would also place the fencing behind the vegetation to hide it. Troutman said that she would talk to Police Chief Patrick Smith about what could be done to answer resident’s concerns about the large amounts of people in the area in the meantime.

Several residents expressed concerns about losing the Bank Street bridge to the same issues, to which Troutman said that maintenance was much easier on the Bank Street bridge because it was not in a historic district.

“The railroad tried years ago to have us expand (the East Fisher Street bridge) and take the property and encroach on the other historic properties. Because it was historic, we weren’t able to make those accommodations and we had to keep repairing and repairing and do what we could. Bank Street, it’s more modern so we’re able to do more and keep it secure for longer,” said Troutman.

Tester also noted that the structure of the Bank Street bridge was entirely steel and concrete, so there was no wood.