neighborhood news : Residents on Ann Arbor's west side launch campaign to save Lansdowne foot bridge

The bridge connects Morehead Court to Delaware Drive in the Lansdowne subdivision near Lawton Elementary School. It was closed in June 2008 and hasn’t reopened because the weirs footing the bridge are structurally deficient.

A hand-written sign is posted at one entrance to a foot bridge in the Lansdowne neighborhood.

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

Frustrated by the lack of a timely response from the city, residents in the neighborhood have launched a campaign to get the bridge reopened, said Kalan Dutta, former president of Lans Basin Inc., the homeowners association. The group created the website www.lansdownebridge.com and have signs similar to those of a political campaign that read “Reopen Lansdowne Bridge” placed throughout the neighborhood.

The association owns the weirs but the city owns the bridge itself.

In an e-mail to fellow city officials, Michael Nearing, senior project manager for the city, stated that when he inspected the bridge on June 13, 2008, the dam or weirs upon which the bridge sits were in such bad shape that they could fail, causing the bridge to collapse.

The footbridge sits on a weir that connects the upper and middle ponds of Malletts Creek. Three ponds are connected via the weirs.

Nearing said he visited the bridge again last month and the weirs are in worse shape than they were in June 2008.

The association does not dispute the fact that the weirs need repair. Dutta said the association is willing to fix them. It received a bid from local landscape construction company John Hollowell & Associates to repair the weirs for roughly $45,000.

However, Dutta said the association was told by city officials at a June 2009 meeting that before any weir repair could take place, a 100-year flood study must be done at a cost of $50,000. At a time when the city budget is tight, it’s not clear if or when such a study could be done.

“Fighting with city was getting to be an incredible hassle,” said Dutta. “That is one reason why I resigned as association president. It was talking entirely too much time to fight with the city in their uncooperative position.”

Neighborhood residents say the closure of the bridge changed the atmosphere of their community.

“(The bridge) has been an area of beauty in our community,” said Debbie Merion, a 22-year resident of the Lansdowne neighborhood. “The bridge gives everybody in the neighborhood access to that beauty, blue herons, turtles, kingfishers and that’s a really unusual site to see in the city. And now that access is cut off."

A foot bridge in the Lansdowne neighborhood has been closed since 2008, when the city determined that the weirs at its base were not structurally sound.

Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com

The bridge was used by students who would cut through the neighborhood to catch the school bus on Delaware, Dutta said. He added that it was a popular spot for many taking senior photos or wedding photos.

“It changes the way you function,” said longtime resident Susan Irwin. Irwin, who would walk her dog on the path, said that the fellow dog walkers she used to see have changed their routes. “I don’t see them anymore,” she said.

Michael Psarouthakis, who owns a home that borders the bridge, said the closure is impacting property values. He called the barricaded bridge an eyesore.

“We understand that there is no money, but there are things that we can do,” said Dutta. “This is a situation where the medicine is worse than the disease. It has become an unattractive nuisance.”

Residents expressed frustration with the city.

“You start out believing when you are told something’s going to happen in a timely manner. Then two years later still nothing is being done,” Irwin said.

Margie Teall, 4th ward Ann Arbor City Council representative, acknowledged that something needs to be done with the bridge.

"For the city's part we are prepared to decouple the bridge," Teall said. "If and when we put the bridge back it will not be on the weir," she said.

Teall added that the bridge is slated for work in the capital improvement plan for 2012, but that she is unsure where the funding will come from.

Barb McMullen, current vice-president of the homeowner’s association, echoed Irwin’s frustration with city officials.

“The city closed the bridge with no real plan to reopen,” McMullen said. “Our goal is just to get them to commit to a specific time and plan.”

Wendy Ochoa is a journalism student at Washtenaw Community College where she writes for the Washtenaw Voice and a summer intern on the Community Team. She is also an English teacher at Plymouth High School. E-mail her with news and events on Ann Arbor's West Side.