A flagman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stood on the defunct Cranberry Hole Road bridge in Amagansett this week before work began for the day.
“Dude, this bridge is fascinating,” he said. “It’s a cool old bridge. I’ve never seen a wood-timber bridge, with, like, pavement over it, on Long Island.”
It was quiet on the span, despite contractors from Asplundh trimming tree limbs near electrical wires with electric chain saws. The absence of vehicle traffic was refreshing, even if it gave the place a dystopian vibe. Overhead, a bluebird called.
The 1895 bridge, which has been declared structurally deficient, was closed to all traffic in July 2023, and is finally set to be replaced. According to East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys, who visited the bridge with Stephen Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent, on Tuesday morning, the 131-foot span will be demolished this winter, possibly in December.
The project is expected to cost between $20 million and $25 million, Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni told the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee last year. Earlier this year, the Long Island Rail Road awarded a contract for the bridge’s replacement, along with bridges at Sagg Road in Sagaponack and River Avenue in Eastport.
Bridge work will be conducted on weekdays, from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Overnight and/or weekend construction may be scheduled if needed, but the M.T.A. has pledged to notify the town if such is the case. A notification letter will be sent to nearby property owners to alert them when the work commences.
Meanwhile, the agency has advised motorists to continue to use Abram’s Landing Road as the designated detour.
“The problem was truckers ignoring the weight restrictions,” said Mr. Lynch. The bridge was rated for five tons, or 10,000 pounds. “Cement trucks went over. Dump trucks. Two years ago, a modular home crossed this span,” he said.
Indeed, the asphalt covering the wooden subflooring showed long cracks matching the width of the wooden planks below. The men crossed the bridge and found a trail that led underneath.
Once the span is removed, abutments, currently scheduled to be constructed next summer, will replace the web of 130-year-old timbers underneath. Next fall, a concrete span, which can hold 80,000 pounds and meets current New York State Department of Transportation standards, will be placed, by a crane, on top. The roadway will be widened to 32 feet (it’s currently about 21 feet wide), including room for pedestrians and A.D.A. access. Milling, paving, curb, and sidewalk work on the approaches, and installation of a new drainage system and leaching basins, are also part of the project.
The new bridge is anticipated to open to traffic in March 2028, though the M.T.A. cautioned that the schedule is subject to change.
“This is important for a couple of reasons,” said Mr. Lys, now under the bridge. “First, this assists, obviously, with emergency response time. Second, there’s going to be two tracks underneath it here. The M.T.A. just put a couple hundred million into their budget to add sidings to the Montauk line. With more sidings and track space, more trains can be run. That’s one of the best things about this project; it’s being designed for the future.”
Under the bridge is its own separate world. The 131-year-old timbers, about a foot square and still sturdy looking despite their age, are black with creosote. Graffiti, invasive plant species, discarded alcohol nips, deer bones, and of course, all manner of trash lives down there.
The deer carcass brought to mind coyotes, and how they travel along rail lines to disperse. “I haven’t seen any,” said Mr. Lynch.
“This bridge has worked long enough,” said Mr. Lys, staring thoughtfully up at a crisscrossing timber frame. “Time for an update.”
The men started climbing back up the embankment to the closed road. From the distance came a hum before the tracks began to vibrate, and then a train sped by. “That must have been the nine o’clock commuter,” said Councilman Lys. “They get a couple hundred people on there every day, a lot from all the school districts. You saw it was a double-decker, but it only had like, three cars on there.”
Talk moved to old train stations, the sand pit in Wainscott, and how it would make sense to have a station there.
“There was one there!” said the councilman.
Mr. Lynch recalled another, maybe not for passengers, but for an old cement-block concern owned by his great-grandfather. “The road before Town Lane, down the end of there, if you go in the bushes, there’s remnants of the old foundation,” he said. Mr. Lys recalled potato farmers also using the train stop.
“Anyway, I’m not going to say we’re going to get another hundred-thirty years out of this new bridge,” he said.
“I won’t know,” Mr. Lynch shot back.
With Reporting by
Christopher Walsh
