American Heritage Magazine

"Saints," People Saving Bridges

After the American Revolution, soldiers and citizens alike started working to make the new nation industrious and self sufficient. Tom Paine, the American patriot and political philosopher, referred to these inventors, innovators and mechanics as Saints. Following is a series of stories about "Saints," which includes the individuals who saved St. Augustine's Bridge of Lions. These modern day "Saints" are a college president, an electrician, a retired structural engineer, a photographer, a school teacher, a county commissioner, a welding instructor, a community college teacher, a professor of engineering, a former state legislator, a graphic artist and photographer, a local preservationist, and a FEMA contractor. They and other stalwart individuals are working to save America‚s historic bridges often against formidable odds. This article illustrates the growing groundswell of enthusiasm and activism by extraordinary citizens to save the Nation‚s historic bridges.

What has caused this groundswell? Many factors are involved, but the single most compelling ingredient seems to be the effusive, personal drive of a single individual. All life is an adventure, according to ancient wisdom, but it has to be pursued vigorously. Some people thrive on causes - rising to the occasion to show the world that one person can make a difference. Rising to great challenges is human nature. Saving old bridges is becoming a common cause in many parts of the country.

Bridge of Lions (1927), St. Augustine, Florida

During the heat of battle some five years ago to save the Bridge of Lions, I wrote to the Federal Highway Administrator for the State of Florida pointing out the characteristics that made this bridge special. I pointed out that the Florida coastline is characterized by beautiful sandy beaches stretching pretty much the entire length of the peninsular state. Further inland, where hotels and high rises haven‚t taken up the land, the terrain is characterized by flat, low-lying swampy areas. Nestled between the two is the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), a navigational channel beginning in Boston, and extending 3,000 miles to Key West, Florida. The toll-free waterway, authorized by Congress in 1919, is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers and regulated by the US Coast Guard. It facilitates navigation along the eastern seaboard and consists of manmade canals, bays protected by barrier islands, natural river channels, and estuaries.

The engineering solution for roads crossing these low swampy areas is causeways. When roads traverse the ICW, the most common bridge design is the bascule because of its safe and efficient opening mechanism. Most of the bridges over the Waterway were built during the 1920s to accommodate the booming tourist industry and the requirements of the new mode of transportation - the automobile. The Ortega River Bridge in Jacksonville, and the Venetian Causeway and Indian Creek Bridge in Miami are several of the more extraordinary examples.

Of the many causeway bascule combinations, the Bridge of Lions, with 23 approach arches and bascule span, is the most architecturally distinctive of the coastal bridges. That is because St. Augustine is one of the most beautiful cities along the Atlantic seaboard. In addition to being the oldest city in the United States, it has an urban core of historic buildings such as the Castillo de San Marcos, a national historic site operated by the National Park Service, dating from Colonial times. Other distinctive pieces of architecture reflect a Mediterranean style including the Catholic Cathedral, and Henry Flagler's former Ponce de Leon Hotel. St. Augustine has as much promise attracting its fair share of the booming tourist industry today as it did in the 1920s. The Mediterranean Revival draw span, linking St. Augustine with Anastasia Island, was designed to complement the historic and architectural ambience of the nation's oldest city.

To address the needs of the burgeoning community, the citizens of St. Augustine, under the inspired leadership of then City Manager Eugene Masters, voted a massive bond issue for the time that would raise an unprecedented $1 million to construct a visually inspiring bridge that supplemented the historic architecture. The bridge was purposely designed to reflect the Mediterranean character of the city. Octagonal towers marking the four corners of the bascule span are the bridge‚s most prominent features. Tiled conical roofs echo the Mediterranean Revival style of the city buildings. Decorative light standards, positioned at every pier, enhance all twenty-three of the rhythmically arched approach spans. At night, their incandescent lights must have looked beautiful reflected in the sparkling water. As a finishing touch, local benefactor and civic booster Dr. Andrew Anderson, donated two majestic lions that guard the St. Augustine end. The statues were sculpted by the Italian artist F. Romanelli from stone quarried in Carrara, the same source used by another famous Italian artist and sculptor, Michelangelo. The "Million Dollar Bridge" quickly became the new symbol of America's "Oldest" city.

As bridges over the Intracoastal Waterway have aged, the US Coast Guard has encouraged states to replace those spans in the more populated areas with high level crossings. This avoids disruption of traffic every time the older bascules are raised. Where there‚s not enough land for approaches, the solution is greater capacity by increasing the number of lanes. There also is a move to increase the width of the waterway in some places. These general goals came into question when plans were announced some ten years ago to replace the aging Bridge of Lions in the ancient city of St. Augustine. The ensuing campaign to save that bridge is one of the most sophisticated bridge preservation efforts during the last ten years.

"They plan to replace the substandard, functionally obsolete Bridge of Lions with a new substandard, functionally obsolete bridge," said John W. Daniels, a new bridge advocate. That summarized the situation in St. Augustine where the battle surrounding the Bridge of Lions divided the community, government agencies and local council members for over a decade. Across the country, citizens are squaring off against local, state and even national agencies to preserve historic bridges. For local governments, the drama often pits intrinsic historic values against public safety, transportation needs and economics. For local governments, the drama often pits intrinsic historic values against public safety, transportation needs and economics.

There are several "Saints‚ for the Bridge of Lions. One is Theresa Segal, president of Save Our Bridge, Inc., an organization formed in 1998 to make sure local residents received comprehensive information about the project and not just the tear it down and rebuild point of view. On her right hand is Nancy Sykes-Kline, a local preservationists, and on her left is TJ (Thomas Jefferson) Tremmel, a contract employee of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), now a Homeland Security agency responsible for responding to and assisting communities recovering from natural and other disasters. Through Segal‚s passionate leadership, with the moral, spiritual and intellectual support of Sykes-Kline and Tremmel, the SOB group convinced the community that they had an opportunity to maintain this civic, engineering and architectural masterpiece.

Throughout the debate over the past decade, Segal became the voice in Tallahassee and throughout the state on why the bridge should be saved. A key threshold for Segal and her committee came in 1999 when the Florida Department of Transportation, which owns the bridge, said it would support the rehabilitation option. This decision was supported by then Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, later famous for her role in the 2000 presidential election.

The seminal event that influenced the Florida State Transportation Department's decision was TJ Tremmel's definitive analysis of the environmental impact statement where he decisively pointed out where the document was flawed with misinformation and statistics that were outdated, inaccurate and simplistic. Tremmel, employed by FEMA, new his way around the gray literature of official government reports and how they were assembled. He found that the research, statistics and conclusions were skewed to support a selective, predetermined conclusion. Nowhere was there a sincere attempt to address the preservation and restoration potential of the bridge or the benefits of such action on the quality of life and visual enhancement of the adjoining community.

Made familiar with the controversy through local newspaper coverage, Tremmel, who regularly fished under the bridge, noticed that few barges traveled the Intracoastal Waterway. This conflicted with information in the impact statement that indicated a dramatic increase in barge traffic. The fishing trips prompted Tremmel to conduct a six-week research project and to write a 70-page report about the Bridge of Lions. "It just didn‚t jive is all," he said. The impact statement gave residents the impression that the bridge was unsafe and unable to handle increased commercial traffic. The federal report was based on information about the Bridge of Lions collected over an eight-year period by various governmental agencies. Tremmel decided to verify facts included in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, subsequently challenging much of the information presented to the DOT by the US Coast Guard.

Tremmel concentrated on barge and tanker traffic, cargo and navigation. "Commercial traffic on this segment of the Intracoastal Waterway from Jacksonville to Miami, is currently in a trend of decline unrecognized by the US Coast Guard and the Florida Inland Navigational District," wrote Tremmel. He objected specifically to the Coast Guard‚s use of traffic statistics using the entire 350-mile length of the Intracoastal from Jacksonville to Miami. A very small percentage of that traffic actually traversed the waterway through the Bridge of Lions. "Available records indicate the total amount of cargo tonnage that passed through the Bridge of Lions is less that 5 percent of the total cargo tonnage that passed through the entire Intracoastal Waterway," Tremmel said. The impact statement stated further that "available records indicate there has been a 400 percent increase in cargo tonnage in the last eight years." Tremmel countered that current figures were not used, and that in fact, there had been a 13 percent decrease from 1990 to 1997. "The selective, misrepresented, inaccurate, and misleading information, in relation to the data in the source documents of record, has deluded, manipulated, and polarized the St. Augustine community," was Tremmel‚s summary assessment.

FDOT‚s announcement that the bridge would be rehabilitated rather than replaced follows years of controversy over the historic bridge. "We are very excited and pleased. I think they made the right decision for St. Augustine to preserve this national treasure," said Theresa Segal. The DOT chose Option 1A from four options listed in the revised environmental impact statement, which included two rehabilitation and two replacement options. Option 1A means FDOT will rehabilitate the bridge by removing the deck and railing, but keeps the original towers. The travel lanes will be widened from 10 feet to 11 feet. Sidewalks will remain 5 feet wide; however, a safety barrier will be placed between the lanes and sidewalks. The bascule span will remain the same. Horizontal clearance for boats will also remain the same at 76 feet.

Following FDOT‚s decision, the Federal Highway Administration also chose rehabilitation for St. Augustine's Bridge of Lions. That decision means that the last obstacle to the rehabilitation project would go forward. Even though two major hurdles had been successfully overcome, "Save Our Bridge will be sticking with this throughout the rehabilitation," said Theresa Segal.

This was a provident conclusion because in April 2004, the lowest bid submitted for the Bridge of Lions rehabilitation came in nearly $20 million higher than state engineers' estimates. Florida Department of Transportation engineers estimated that the cost of rehabilitating the 1927 bridge should be about $57.4 million. But all four bids opened April 28th were much higher. The low bid, $76.8 million submitted by Tidewater Skanska Inc. of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was $19.4 million more than the engineers estimated. Fred Halback, FDOT‚s public information officer for the Bridge of Lions project, said, "One of the things the DOT team is doing right now is finding out why the bids are so high and what can be done to modify the situation. It's all related to the price of concrete and steel."

As it turns out, FDOT announced on June 22, 2004, that the Bridge of Lions will be rehabilitated with work starting in spring 2005 after Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville. The decennial campaign to save the BOL is one of the most sophisticated bridge preservation efforts during the last ten years. One of the most sophisticated bridge preservation web sites, and a major factor in the successful efforts to save the Bridge of Lions is: <http://www.thebridgeoflions.org/>www.thebridgeoflions.org.

As the record shows, historic bridges in the United States are in extreme jeopardy. The last 20 years have been lethal. Without the work of these "Saints," we stand to lose a very important inheritance of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. As these stories have demonstrated, one voice, however small, can and does make a difference, in the most extraordinary of ways. Never, ever underestimate the power of your own voice.

Eric DeLony

Consultant, Engineering & Industrial Heritage, Santa Fe, NM

Chief (Retired), Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service