Aiken city leaders announce Union Street Bridge will not be reopening

AIKEN, S.C. (WJBF) – People in Aiken are making their request clear on a fence blocking the Union Street Bridge—“Free Our Bridge”.

But after recent conversations with the State Department of Transportation, city leaders say it will not reopen–and it doesn’t come as a surprise.

“It’s certainly very unique and a wonderful structure to experience driving over in a motor vehicle—but it is not built to those modern safety specifications,” said City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh.

SCDOT inspects bridges in good condition every two years, deciding to close the bridge in January 2023 due to weight restrictions.

“At that point when they did that inspection it failed–and we’ve been waiting to hear formal notification from DOT since then,” said Bedenbaugh.

Bedenbaugh recently spoke with the SCDOT Secretary, who told him they do not plan to reopen the bridge because it doesn’t meet safety standards.

“We’ve known for a decade plus that once the bridge does not pass an inspection, it would be closed,” Bedenbaugh said.

It’s one of 5 bridges in the area that crosses the “railroad cut” through downtown Aiken.

Laurens, Newberry, and York Streets can be used as detours for drivers.

The bridges on York Street and Fairfield Street were closed in 2016, but the York Street bridge was successfully replaced.

The Fairfield Street Bridge remains closed, but the city is working on plans to rebuild it.

“The reason it’s taken that one so long to get that project moving forward is lack of funding,” Bedenbaugh added. “DOT has offered $1.3 Million–we’ve entered an agreement with him to do that–and our council approved that late last year. The city is also appropriated $3 Million of Plutonium settlement money to rebuild that bridge. So, we are in the process now of getting our final plans ready to share with adjacent property owners, and the public at large.”

Bedenbaugh says the city is just waiting on an official notification from DOT–he expects the notification to come any day, calling it “eminent”.

Once that happens, the plan is to have public input meetings about what stakeholders would like to see next.

“Do we invest the time and the potential funds into converting it into another sort of use? Or do we just decommission and it goes away? Again, that’s to be determined based on the council, direction, and input from our public,” said Bedenbaugh.

There is no timeline or schedule for those meetings at this time.

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