14th Street Bridge ready to reopen

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

At last.

The 14th Street Bridge is set to open to traffic next week, one year, three months and eight days after it was closed for reconstruction.

At 10 a.m. Thursday, a blue ribbon stretched across the Midtown artery will be sliced in two. By 3 p.m., after the politicians clear out and work crews clear off, traffic that has been dammed for more than a year can legally flow over the bridge, which spans the Downtown Connector.

Good weather and hard work have enabled crews to finish earlier than they might have, said Crystal Paulk-Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation. C.W. Matthews Contracting Co. had until December to open the bridge or be charged a penalty.

“We are so happy” that the work handily beat the deadline, Paulk-Buchanan said.

She noted that the bridge will open just in time for Georgia Tech’s football home opener the following Saturday.

The bridge was heavily used by commuters, Midtown businesspeople, Georgia Tech students and people going to events. A new turn lane will make their drive easier.

The new version will include more than just pavement, though. The sidewalk on one side is expanded to 15 feet across. Decorative lights will illuminate both the roadway and sidewalks in shades of primary colors, said Dan Hourigan, who heads transportation issues for the Midtown Alliance, a self-taxing business district that helped design the new bridge.

“I think it’ll be pretty stunning,” Hourigan said.

The median is designed for landscaping, and when planting season rolls around in October, flowers, shrubs and trees will be installed.A decorative screen — not the usual chain-link anti-jumper fence — flanks the bridge and is easily seen from the Connector below.

“We kind of took a cue from the gates of Piedmont Park” in designing the fence, Hourigan said.

He said the alliance probably put $180,000 worth of services into the bridge, whose total cost including new freeway ramps is estimated at $88.5 million.

“It’s a wonderful thing for the community,” Hourigan said. “We waited a long time.”

It’s been a long wait especially for some 14th Street businesses that depended on traffic from across the Connector, and from the Connector itself. They endured a double whammy because much of the Connector was repaved last summer.

Residents and commuters felt the pain, too.

“Our street’s kind of become the de facto cut through,” said Garrett Smith, who moved to the Home Park neighborhood just after the bridge closed. “There’s traffic up and down it all night long.”

His wife used to get on the Connector right near their home. During the bridge closure she’s been reduced to a Russian roulette of commute strategies to make her way to Ga. 400, often making massive zig-zags on Northside Drive and I-75 and back.

“The opening’s going to be awesome,” Smith said.

Also opening Thursday will be Techwood Drive, and a ramp from I-75 southbound, enabling drivers to exit to 14th Street and continue on to 10th Street, said Paulk-Buchanan.

However, crews are still working on a ramp from the Connector northbound to 17th Street, and on part of Williams Street, Paulk-Buchanan said. They’re also still repaving the northern tip of the Connector as part of the bridge project. All that should be done by spring, she said.