Residents of Cassville will soon have a new way to cross Flat Creek — a pedestrian bridge.
David Brock, Cassville public works director, said the project must be awarded in 23 months to build a 360-foot bridge from 5th Street and Highway 76 at Mill Street, across Flat Creek to the Cassville Greenway Trail.
The project is being mostly funded by a MoDOT grant, with the state picking up 61 percent of the $825,000 cost, or about $500,000, and the city paying the remaining 39 percent, or about $321,750.
“MoDOT has this recurring grant program, Transportation Alternatives,” Brock said. “It’s for any type of transportation other than vehicular and usually for things around here like sidewalks or trails. Every two years they do a cycle, and we’d applied in the previous cycle but did not get in.
“This one came around and I think there were some discussions of the 7th Street bridge’s demolition after the flooding and that Mill Street would be a good route for pedestrians to cross the creek.”
The city of Cassville hired an engineer to do a study geared specifically toward the grant application, “We threw our hat in the ring, and fortunately, MoDOT had a bunch of American Rescue Plan Act money from the feds, so they funded every application they got and asked for more,” Brock said. “There’s an 80-20 minimum split for funding, but this is a competitive grant and you get extra points when it’s scored if you up the local percentage, and we had to anyway because of the size of the project.”
Brock said the grant dictates the project must be awarded in 23 months time, and it may take that long.
“You have to engineer it to death,” he said. “We’re required to award it in less than 23 months, and we put down several months for right of way acquisition, but we will only need one easement. But, it will take an excessive amount of time for the environmental assessment, engineering and MoDOT review of the plans.”
Plans for the 7th Street Bridge have fallen stagnant due to lack of funding, and Brock said the idea behind this new project is to provide a bridge connecting better to Main Street.
“It’s not unusual to see people walking the 76 bridge, and that’s our immediate goal is to help there because there is no alternative to crossing Flat Creek if you’re traveling by foot,” he said. “We hope to see people take this route because they want to, whether it’s for exercise or to get to downtown.”
Part of the grant application included a letter of support from Morgan Williams, director of the Cassville Area Chamber of Commerce.
“Unfortunately, it is all too common to see pedestrians or cyclists on the Highway 76/112 bridge,” she said. “Those of us who live in the area know the driving lanes on that bridge are narrow for vehicles, let alone for people who compete with vehicles to cross it on foot.
“We support the city’s efforts to construct a pedestrian link between our downtown and the east side of Flat Creek and would encourage the use of federal highway funds toward this purchase.”
