Workers to replace bridge over zoo

The bridge replacement project will cost 46.4 million.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- A crumbling 75-year-old bridge must come down next weekend to make room for a new one, but the demolition must be delicate since it straddles a zoo, creek and railroad tracks.
A five-second series of blasts will topple the historic Fulton Road Bridge over Big Creek Valley and part of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The bridge, in disrepair for years, closed to traffic in October.
Its six concrete arches up to 110 feet high still cross a valley and pieces of its deck have been removed to prepare for the implosion Saturday. A new, similarly designed bridge is expected to take its place late in 2009.
The demolition crew must take care in bringing down the 50 million-pound concrete and steel structure so not to harm the homes, zoo animals, creek and railroad tracks underneath.
"They don't want the grenade effect" of debris scattering in all directions, Cuyahoga County Engineer Robert Klaiber said.
The county is working with the Ohio Department of Transportation on the 46.4 million replacement project. Federal, state, Cuyahoga County and city money are paying for the replacement and to place a multipurpose trail beneath it.
Conducting implosion
A Texas company will conduct the implosion so the bridge drops straight down in big pieces. Duane Houkom Inc. also helped demolish the Main Street bridge over the Scioto River in Columbus last year.
The bridge is familiar not just to the neighborhood but also to motorists on nearby Interstate 71 and to those who have walked beneath it at the zoo. A trail under it leads to the zoo's Wolf Wilderness and past bears, tigers, reindeer and camels.
During the implosion, the zoo's animals will be in their night quarters, sheltered by keepers from noise and debris until the job is done, zoo spokeswoman Sue Allen said.
"Obviously, they're not used to having something like a bridge demolition in their daily lives," Allen said. "They can all be skittish in their own way."
The zoo will open Saturday after the implosion, but the area near the bridge will be closed to the public.
Bruce Bogzevitz, a retired schoolteacher now living in Parma, grew up with the bridge as a backdrop in the 1940s and through the '60s. His late parents' house had a clear view.
"The bridge was basically my back yard, and we had lots of fun there," he said. "We played on it and around it and walked over it so many times."
He remembers his mother's frustration when trains traveled under the bridge and spewed soot over laundry drying outside.
"I'm kind of glad they're doing it," he said of the bridge demolition. "It's so dangerous and falling apart."
ODOT engineer Ray Bencivengo said it makes more sense to replace the bridge than to continue patching it.
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