The 100-plus-year-old MKT Bridge in Houston, a popular pathway for pedestrians and cyclists, is closed for an indefinite amount of time as the Texas Department of Transportation evaluates significant damage to the bridge after equipment from a nearby construction project collided with it.
According to TxDOT, several crane mats from a nearby construction site along Interstate 10 were swept away by rainwater last weekend, causing them to make contact with the the bridge columns. The crane mats were being used to allow cranes to maneuver over the muddy construction site.
“Unfortunately, due to the rain event over the weekend, the waters rose and picked up the mats which caused them to float toward the columns,” a TxDOT spokesperson told Houston Public Media on Friday. “When contact was made it caused significant damage … enough for us to close it as a safety precaution until the necessary repairs are made.”
A TxDOT spokesperson said it’s unclear how long the bridge will be closed, adding that a repair plan should be ready within the coming weeks.
Another reason for me to hate the I-10 elevation project. I noticed this for myself on Sunday, just two days after this story and a week after the incident. There’s a new ramp up from the existing White Oak trail to Studemont, just south of I-10 on the west side, with the street level access point at the new strip center that used to be the Party Boy. I’m not sure what spurred this development – I haven’t seen any news about it and some cursory googling came up empty. I presume it was a previously approved and funded item from before, as there’s no way anything like this would have happened under the current regime. It’s not likely to be a highly used ramp, as it dumps you onto a bike-unfriendly stretch of sidewalk that goes a short distance south and ends where Studemont goes under the train tracks. I suspect it will mostly be used by people coming from points west on the trail to the Kroger or the emergency clinic, and also from the residents of the new apartments as this will be their most convenient access to the trail. As I write that I recall some discussion from a few years ago about a project like that. I guess this is it.
Anyway. I say all that because I was going to traverse the bridge in hopes of getting close enough to take some pictures of the new ramp, which was completed fairly quickly, but I was thwarted. I’ll come at it from another angle soon and post the views I can get. If you know more about this, please leave a comment, I’m very interested.
Getting back to the bridge for a second, you may recall that it was closed after the wooden structure under it caught fire in August 2020. It finally reopened in late May of 2022, nearly two years later, after multiple delays in the repair schedule, and just a couple of months before the opening of the White Oak bike trail extension. I sure hope it will take a lot less time to fix now.