‘This should be a community bridge’: Groups gather public input on future of Mayo Bridge

More than 150 people gathered Monday for a discussion around the replacement of the Mayo Bridge. (Mike Platania photo)

A community meeting was held Monday night to field public input on what a new Mayo Bridge could look like. 

Held jointly by the Manchester Alliance, Shockoe Partnership and Bike Walk RVA, the meeting centered on the upcoming replacement of the 111-year-old bridge that connects Shockoe to Manchester via 14th Street. It also bisects Mayo Island, which the City of Richmond now owns and plans to turn into a park. 

The bridge replacement project has been in the works for a few years now. It was initially set to include a replacement of the top of the bridge (the superstructure), but the scope of the project expanded earlier this month when the Virginia Department of Transportation announced that a recent analysis found that the bridge’s piers (the substructure) will likely need to be replaced as well.

Replacing the piers or relocating the bridge is likely to significantly increase the initial $90 million budget for the project, which the state and city already have earmarked, but it also opens up more creative options on how the new bridge – or bridges – could be designed. 

Monday’s meeting was held at Studio Two Three’s new home in Manchester before a crowd of around 170. Those in attendance included the City’s Chief Administrative Officer Lincoln Saunders and Councilwoman Ellen Robertson. 

Saunders told the crowd that there were still some unknowns regarding the overall state of the piers, and that the city is looking to the community to contribute ideas before the bridge design process gets underway. 

“There’s additional analysis and scoping that needs to be done to see what the best alternative is, be that a potentially new structure on a different routing, or a new, full bridge replacement on the existing geolocation,” Saunders said. “We don’t know what those answers are going to be yet.”

The bridge bisects Mayo Island, which is set to become a city park. (Google Maps)

The defects VDOT recently found in the existing piers would reduce a new superstructure’s lifespan from the 75-100 year range to around 25, city bridge engineer John Sang Kim said. 

While the current Mayo Bridge has two lanes of traffic heading in each direction with sidewalks on either side, Charles Macfarlane, a local developer who leads the Shockoe Partnership, said the organization and the Manchester Alliance would like to see the new bridge include more pedestrian access, an idea he said is supported by both the Shockoe Small Area Plan and Richmond 300 master plan. 

“We believe it should be one lane in each direction and the rest should be for pedestrians, recreation and bikes,” Macfarlane said, drawing applause from the crowd. “The heavy trucks, the big trucks, the loud trucks – all of those can go on the other bridges. We believe this should be a community bridge.”

Attendees also said the future park on Mayo Island should be a consideration, and Councilwoman Robertson said the new Mayo Bridge needs to be thought of as “the heart of the park.”

Examples of bridges from as far away as Prague and France were presented as possible design inspirations for the new Mayo Bridge.

“We have a park that the city owns that’s in the middle of this bridge, and whatever we do with this bridge…everybody needs to be able to get to the park and park on either side of the bridge,” Robertson said. “As we think about the design of this bridge, I like the idea of it being a livable bridge, but I also want it to also be thought of as an extension of the park.”

While questions of future funding hurdles and exact bridge route remain, Bike Walk RVA director Brantley Tyndall encouraged the public to think creatively in giving the city and VDOT ideas of what the new Mayo Bridge could include. 

“We get to work with a blank slate now,” Tyndall said. “Let’s think about what we actually want to accomplish, without being constrained.”

Added Macfarlane: “This is an opportunity to do something really marvelous from an architectural standpoint.”

Examples of innovative new bridge designs were offered at the meeting by Ted Elmore, president of local nonprofit BridgePark, which is looking to also reimagine the Manchester Bridge.

Elmore pointed to Indianapolis’ Henry Street bridge as one that accommodates both car and pedestrian traffic, and The Providence River Pedestrian Bridge in Rhode Island as a project that converted an aging, existing bridge into a pedestrian-only promenade. Whether the Mayo Bridge could support such a conversion is still to be determined, Elmore said, but it’s worth exploring. 

“From a community perspective, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a whole new bridge the way they want,” Elmore said. 

VDOT is currently conducting a survey to gather public input on the new Mayo Bridge’s design. 

Construction isn’t likely to begin until 2027, and the buildout could span years. Architecture firm SMBW and design studio Marvel Designs are part of the planning team for the bridge project. 

It will be the ninth time in the Mayo Bridge’s history that it’ll be replaced.

BridgePark’s Manchester Bridge project is still in the works, Elmore said, noting that it was bolstered by being along the Fall Line Trail, a new pedestrian trail that will run from Ashland to Petersburg.

The post ‘This should be a community bridge’: Groups gather public input on future of Mayo Bridge appeared first on Richmond BizSense.