QuickTake:

Lane County has two covered bridges that would otherwise collapse without immediate repairs. This year, the bridges will get some much-needed stabilization work, county officials decided.

With two historic covered bridges on the verge of ruin, Lane County commissioners have taken an initial step to preserve them. 

The county will allow an emergency selection process for the engineering, construction and other professional services to make repairs and stabilize Currin and Stewart covered bridges, the commissioners decided Tuesday, April 28. The move allows the county to move more quickly to pick a contractor, without the typical competitive bidding process, to make repairs to the bridges. The vote was unanimous, with Commissioner Pat Farr out for an excused absence.

The need for quick action is important, officials said, because the summer construction season is approaching and the bridges raise safety concerns and could potentially collapse, another financial risk. Both bridges are near Cottage Grove. 

“We realized that these bridges are in really dire shape and there’s a safety risk of them collapsing,” Brett Henry, the parks division manager, told commissioners.

The county is using primarily transient lodging tax dollars for the repairs, which could cost between $480,000 to $780,000 for both bridges, based on an engineer’s preliminary estimates.

The two bridges are closed to the public. They are among 20 covered bridges in Lane County, the most of any county in Oregon. The wooden structures are a throwback to an earlier era, when thriving timber companies in the 1800s and early 1900s erected them to aid the hauling of logs from the forest.

For a time, Lane County had more than 400 covered bridges. The 20 covered bridges that remain attract sightseers and tourists who are drawn to the structures that serve as de facto time capsules of transportation infrastructure.

Still, time takes its toll, even on sturdy bridges hewn with the toughest Oregon-grown timber.

The Stewart bridge, built in 1930, has a span of 60 feet across Mosby Creek, with access to the structure restricted by orange safety netting. Inspectors have flagged timber decay and crushed supports, to the point where the stress could cause the structure to collapse onto an adjacent bridge or injure people, according to county records. 

The Currin bridge is even older, built in 1925 with a 105-foot span across the Row River. The bridge has visible sagging in the deck and other signs of distress, county records show.

In February, commissioners approved the funding, but had not yet agreed upon the strategy to repair the bridges. The other two options would be to bid out the work in a lengthier process or demolish and remove the bridges, which would also cost money. 

The repairs are a starting point to buy more time — not a permanent solution.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.