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Blacks Favor Opening
Charlie Lewis, spokesman for Sperryville’s black community and the Hopewell Baptist Church, expressed support for opening the bridge. “Now we have to go down around town to get to the last resting place of our loved ones,” he said.
Martin Woodard described the choices between reopening the bridge with a 20 ton limit or keeping it closed as “an all or nothing proposition. I can’t believe that somewhere in the morass of state regulations you can’t find something to fit this situation,” he told Askew.
“It behooves you, as our supervisor, to look into this and see if you can’t find some other alternative between all or nothing,” Woodard said, addressing himself to Luke. “You all are holding all the cards and telling us how it
“We’re obligated by department guidelines to build to jthq^ggal load limit.
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J rcfpfied. If rebuilt, the structure won’t be a grandiose bridge, he said. It’s appearance will stay the same. The only difference will be four additional steel beams underneath, Askew explained.
“I don’t know of any bridges in the state of Virginia being built to less than the legal limit,” Askew continued. In response to more questions from the audience, he acknowledged that the highway department "has many “inadequate” bridges throughout the state that don’t meet the legal load limit. “That’s why it’s highway department policy to bring them up to the legal limit when they’re repaired,” he said.
Responding to more shouted questions from the rear of the room, Askew said again that the bridge was closed “because of accelerated deterioration of the bridge deck.”
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