Closure of Lake Champlain bridge a blow to region
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By GORDON DRITSCHILO Rutland Herald Staff - Published: October 20, 2009
A key bridge across southern Lake Champlain from Addison to Crown Point, N.Y., will likely be closed for months, a Vermont official said Monday.
Merchants in Addison say they have been cut off from employees and customers and that some local farmers have even been cut off from their crops. The Addison County Chamber of Commerce and an ad-hoc group of small business owners have organized separate meetings on the issue.
An estimated 4,000 drivers a day use the 2,184-foot-long bridge, which is scheduled for rehabilitation or replacement in 2013 under part of a bi-state agreement.
Meanwhile, officials on both sides of Lake Champlain say they are looking to put up some sort of temporary alternative to the bridge as soon as possible. New York Department of Transportation spokesman Skip Carrier said he has spoken to the U.S. Army about putting in a pontoon bridge.
"I think right now we're trying to get proposals from wherever we can," he said. "We're trying to throw as wide a net as possible to help these people."
The closure means motorists need to use the Fort Ticonderoga Ferry, the Lake Champlain Transportation Co.'s Essex-Charlotte ferry or detour around the southern end of the lake near Whitehall. Both ferry companies said they are working on plans to increase service
New York officials closed the bridge Friday after inspectors deemed it unsafe. Traffic that normally passes over the bridge has been diverted to a ferry in Shoreham or all the way to Fair Haven, a 100-mile detour. New York and Vermont own the bridge jointly, but New York will take the lead in the repairs.
"Right now, the parking lot of my restaurant has two vehicles," Bridge Restaurant owner Lisa Cloutier said just before 6 p.m. "Normally I'd have 10 to 13. It's pathetic. … This could be the death of me."
Cloutier's restaurant is located right next to the bridge and she said she depends on traffic crossing the lake. She said she has temporarily laid-off three part-time and three full-time employees, leaving herself, her mother and two part-timers.
She's not alone. West Addison General Store co-owner Lorraine Franklin said she's laid-off six of her nine employees. They live on the other side of the lake, she said, but even if they made it across, she has no work for them as 80 percent of her customers come from over the bridge.
"One person is coming in part time," Franklin said. "She lives just a minute over the bridge. It takes her two and a half hours to get here."
Franklin said she knows one farmer with crops on the far side of the lake and another with a barn full of cows on the other side.
While they have not resorted to layoffs, Dock Doctors assistant general manager Lynn Provost said roughly half the company's 30 employers live across the lake and have doubled or tripled their travel time to work.
"We have a second location over on Lake George," she said. "Not being able to get from here to there is going to be a detriment to us."
Cloutier, with help from Franklin and some other small business owners, will hold a meeting at the restaurant today at 9 a.m. to talk about the situation. Cloutier said she expects state officials to attend.
"There has to be something done," she said. "This corridor was put into place 80 years ago. It's how Addison was built up."
The Addison County Chamber of Commerce has also organized a meeting on the issue, scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at the American Legion in Middlebury.
"There literally are some people, I'm being told, who cannot afford the extra gas or ferry fees so some companies are offering an additional per diem to get people to work," chamber president Andy Mayer said.
Mayer said the chamber wants to give area businesses a chance to compare notes, and said the meeting could lead to some shared transportation arrangements.
Vermont AOT spokesman John Zicconi said the states would need a week or two for an in-depth look at the bridge to determine what repairs are necessary and that it would probably be a matter of months before the bridge could be reopened.
He said temporary options under discussion involve putting a park-and-ride and bus stop at the ferry and making it pedestrian-only, increasing its capacity.
That and other options, such as a float bridge or a temporary additional ferry, will require study before they can happen, Zicconi said.
Zicconi said the states will split the repair costs, though if federal aid is available that could cover 80 percent of the bill.
gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com
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