Side Streets   Neighborhoods, people and issues

Joey, the 18-month-old Yorkie, owned by Frank and Mary VerHey

Little Joey came running up to greet me with a smile on his face. He was so adorable I barely noticed the bite marks on the head of the 5-pound, 18-month-old Yorkie.

A few days before Christmas, Joey had been snatched by a coyote as he played in the yard, chasing birds.

Luckily, Joey’s owner, 84-year-old Frank VerHey, was standing close by at his work bench and saw the abduction.

“That sonofagun coyote jumped over the fence, picked Joey up by the head and took off,” Frank told me Wednesday.

Frank immediately gave chase, running after the predator as his pup dangled and flopped from the coyote’s mouth.

“He jumped back over the fence with me after him,” Frank said. “He cut across the street. I ran as fast as I could run.”

Frank VerHey and his dog, Joey, in the backyard of their home in Emerald Acres Mobile Home Park on North Cascade Avenue. (Photo by Christian Murdock / The Gazette)

For a few frantic minutes, Frank followed them through his neighbors’ yards, up the street and down the alley of the Emerald Acres Mobile Home Park on north Cascade Avenue, near a bend in Monument Creek.

“I’m 84 years old with a pacemaker,” Frank said, vividly recalling each step in the chase. “I was trying to follow that little bugger.”

It must have been quite the scene: Frank running and hollering for help; a neighbor screaming as the coyote raced toward her with little Joey; and finally another neighbor confronting the escaping canine, causing it to drop Joey in a heap and race off.

“He dropped him in the middle of D Street,” Frank said. “He was bleeding bad. I picked him up and ran him to the hospital. They told me he didn’t have a 20 percent chance of making it.”

But three days later, and after $1,900 worth of surgery to close his wounds, Joey was declared a Christmas miracle and released. Frank and his wife of 62 years, Mary, celebrated the return of their little dog.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there.

Even as we spoke, the would-be kidnapper and his pals were trotting through the 18-acre field that separates the creek from the mobile home park and Frank and Mary’s trailer.

It was mid-afternoon but the five coyotes were not shy as a couple of them rough-housed on a pile of dirt near the Pikes Peak Greenway Trail along the creek.

And that’s the problem. Frank said the coyotes aren’t afraid of humans. They hang around all the time. Even hop in the yard and steal pieces of bread he tosses to the birds he feeds in his yard.

“They are so brazen,” Frank said. “They roam around here like they own the place. Do we have to live like this, worried that they’re going to grab our dog and kill him?”

So I called Michael Seraphin, spokesman for the state Division of Parks and Wildlife. Surely, I suggested, there must be something Frank can do to protect his pet from coyotes. How about shooting them with a small-caliber rifle or pellet gun.

As usual, I was wrong.

“In the county, you’d just shoot them,” Seraphin said bluntly. “But you can’t do that in the city.”

It’s open season on coyotes year-round. And if you kill them on your property, you don’t even need a small game hunting license.

But only in unincorporated areas of the county. Not within city limits, where it’s illegal to discharge a weapon.

And it seems the coyotes have figured out they are free to hunt and kill in the city with impunity.

“Urban coyotes feel very brazen,” Seraphin said, echoing Frank. “They never get harassed, shot at or killed for hanging around people.

“They believe people are not a threat.”

Instead, they’ve learned we are a source of food. As a result, coyotes range across the Pikes Peak region, feasting on deer, fox, rabbit, squirrel, mice and anything humans carelessly leave out including bird food and garbage.

“They are omnivores and will eat anything,” Seraphin said. “They catch small mammals like mice and other rodents. And they’ll catch foxes as well as dogs and cats.”

So what are people like Frank supposed to do to protect their pets? I’ve written about rural neighborhoods that hired companies to set out live traps. But Seraphin said coyotes typically are too smart to enter an enclosure. And leg-hold traps are illegal in Colorado and only permitted if there is a threat to human health.

A coyote in a live trap.

Seraphin suggested everyone who sees coyotes should haze the animals. Scream at them. Throw rocks or cans at them. Spray them with hoses. Make them feel unwelcome.

One option is buying cans of pepper spray that can hit a target 20 feet away. But Seraphin cautioned even pepper spray requires practice to use — aim low so it doesn’t blow back on you.

“Coyotes are becoming an increasing problem in urban areas across North America,” he said. “It’s a difficult question of how to deal with any predator in an urban setting.”

For Frank, it means keeping close track of Joey and finding ways to dissuade the coyotes from lurking near his place.

“I put up motion detectors and lights hoping that might keep them away,” Frank said as Joey happily circled the yard, scampering after birds. “But I guess I just won’t leave Joey alone for a second.”

A coyote runs across a field behind Frank VerHey’s backyard Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. VerHey’s little dog, Joey, nearly died in December when a coyote snatched him out of VerHey’s yard on North Cascade Avenue . (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)

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Charlie Sheen in his mug shot after his arrest in Aspen on Christmas morning, 2009.

The Fillmore Street bridge over Monument Creek is becoming famous. But as Charlie Sheen taught us, fame has its drawbacks.

In  a June 2009 column, I introduced you to the bridge, which is 288 feet long and five lanes wide and sits just east of Interstate 25.

Of course, I wrote about it in my June 28, 2009, blog.

Since then, it’s fame has grown from coast to coast. It has been featured in discussions by engineers at Stanford University in California and at the Northeast Bridge Preservation Conference in Hartford, Conn.

The Fillmore Street bridge even has its own video on You Tube.

But all its buzz is not necessarily a good thing. Engineers are talking about it because of its rocker bearings.

The Fillmore Street bridge over Monument Creek, looking south, taken Dec. 12, 2011. Rocker bearings, which sit between 38-feet-tall concrete piers and the steel beams of the bridge, are tilting, prompting worried calls to Colorado Springs engineers.

Rocker bearings are stubby, steel supports — like big shoe boxes — rounded on top and bottom.

Several of the Fillmore bridge bearings are tilted at alarming angles.

The bearing are sandwiched between the top of 38-foot-tall concrete bridge piers and the hortizontal steel beams of the bridge.

Folks called me in 2009, scared the bridge might fall based on what they saw underneath as they traveled the Pikes Peak Greenway trail.

Tilted rocker bearings are visible in this closer view of the north side of the Fillmore Street bridge over Monument Creek. The view is facing south.Here's a closer look at the rocker bearings:The rocker bearings are shaped like large shoe boxes and rest between the concrete pier, which rises about 38 feet from the creek, and the steel beams of the bridge. They are designed to tilt to compensate for movement in the structure.

So I called Dan Krueger, a senior civil engineer in Colorado Springs’ engineering department.

Krueger told me when the bridge was built in 1961, rocker bearings were used to allow slight rotatation to compensate for movement in a bridge.

The Fillmore bridge slopes from west to east and flexes, like most bridges, from thermal forces each day. It expands in the sun and contracts as it cools, especially in summer.

He said the city took ownership of the bridge in 2007 from the Colorado Department of Transportation and had been inspecting it every three months. He said the bridge was stable and safe.

I took a few photos, posted them on my blog and went back to harassing homeowners associations.

I never realized the city decided a few months later to start taking a harder look at the bridge.

Then I received an email in December from a structural and forensic engineer in New York. She wanted permission to use my photos in her research proposal to study bridge rocker bearings. The Fillmore bridge rocker bearings caught her attention.

She told me the Fillmore rocker bearings were the subject of discussion in engineering circles. I learned our little bridge was discussed at engineering conferences from California to Connecticut. (They even used my photos.)

I found references on the Web, even the You Tube video, and learned the city had put the bridge under intense scrutiny.

So I called Krueger back and learned that in 2009 the city hired Structure Inspection and Monitoring Inc., or SIM, of San Jose, Calif., to install sophisticated sensors to determine the stability of the bridge and learn why its bearings tilted.

The good news: experts say the bridge is safe.

This photo from GoogleEarth.com shows the manmade hills built to separate Interstate 25, the railroad tracks and Monument Creek. Experts believe the hill became saturated and settled, perhaps causing the bridge to shift east.

“If the bridge was unsafe, we would close it,” Krueger said. “It’s open and we’re watching it.”

But he acknowledged the bridge is puzzling.

“The bridge does have some issues but it appears to be stablized,” Krueger said. “There are some head-scratcher things about the structure.”

Like why the rocker bearings tilted. And why the bridge seems to have slid against the east abutment.

A runner on the Pikes Peak Greenway trail heads under the Fillmore Street bridge and its tilting rocker bearings in this Dec. 12, 2011, photo. This view looks north. Beyond the bridge is the Rick "Goose" Gossage Youth Sports Complex.

Spencer Graves, president of SIM, said he’s studied a year’s worth of data and agrees with Krueger’s assessment.

“It seems to be quite safe,” Graves said. “It’s not dangerous. The city is taking responsible action. The prudent thing is to monitor.”

Graves believes a 38-foot-tall concrete pier which rises from Monument Creek moved in a flood sometime since the bridge was widened in 1971.

And, he said, he believes saturation of manmade hill at the west end caused it to slump, causing the bridge to shift.

Measuring devices can be seen in this photo of a rocker bearing on the Fillmore Street bridge.

His company installed an array of sensors and probes on the bridge and is conducting intense monitoring of the bridge to determine if it is moving.

Krueger said the question of movement is the key.

“We have to establish whether the bridge is moving or not,” he said. “That’s why the equipment has been installed. To answer that question.

This expansion joint, at the east end of the bridge, repeatedly cracked open, requiring constant patching. It was a red flag to experts that the Fillmore Street bridge was moving.

“If it’s moving, then we need to get something in the hopper to fix it.” 

He understands why people who see the bridge are worried.

“There are some odd things that are worthy of concern and watching and monitoring, which is what we’re doing.”

But he believes it is not moving more than any other bridge.

“It is anchored on the west abutment,” Krueger said. “And it rests against the east abutment only in summer. A gap opens in winter, which is good.”

It means the bridge is expanding and contracting as designed. Not moving freely and premanently lodged against the east end.

 That flexing explains why the expansion joint at the east end was a chronic problem for street crews.

 It constantly needed to be patched as the bridge moved back and forth.

 Krueger said the new information has allowed the city to address the joint with a more weather-proof solution to minimize the constant cracking.

Here's the point the bridge meets the east abutment. Note how the railings are smashed together and the concrete is crushed where the bridge is resting on it. The expansion joint is visible on the surface.

Below I’ve posted photos explaining some of the impressive technology employed by Graves’ SIMS group to monitor the bridge.

After a year of monitoring to establish a baseline of data, the city now will spend another year watching it to determine if it is acting up and in need of an expensive repair or even more expensive replacement.

It would cost upwards of $2 million to replace.

The problem is that the bridge scored an 85.6 sufficiency rating on its 2010 inspection. It needs to score a 50-80 rating to qualify for fedreal bridge rehabilitation funds. And it must score below 50 to qualify for federal bridge replacement funds.

This link takes you to UglyBridges.com where you can see its 2008 evaluation data. Notice the tilted rocker bearings are not even mentioned in the evaluation of the bridge!

So any work done now would be funded solely by Colorado Springs taxpayers. And nobody wants to buy a new bridge if they don’t have to.

Of course, no one wants the bridge to end up like Charlie Sheen, either.

Sophisticated computerized sensors and probes were installed by Structure Inspection and Monitoring Inc. of San Jose, Calif.

A sophisticated high-tech monitoring system was installed on the bridge after my 2009 column. The solar-powered system collects real-time data every second on soil moisture, temperature and bridge movement from dozens of sensors and probes. Consultants collected a year of data to establish a baseline for the bridge and now is collecting a second year of data and conducting real-time analyses.

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This graphic from SIM -- Structure Inspection and Monitoring Inc. from San Jose, Calif. -- maps the dozen "linear displacement" sensors deployed on the Fillmore Street bridge as well as the solar-powered computer system used to transmit data in real time.

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This graphic from SIM -- Structural Inspection and Monitoring Inc in San Jose, Calif. -- explains the work of linear displacement sensors on the Fillmore Street bridge.

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Another SIM graphic maps acceleromters, which are employed on the bridge, as well as "strain gauges."

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The big project for the city's trail staff in 2011 is completing the 3.5-mile Midland Trail from America the Beautiful Park to Manitou Springs. A $2 million grant from Great Outdoors Colorado paid for the project, due to be completed in October.

Perhaps the most exciting three-day sports weekend in Colorado Springs history culminates Monday when 135 or so pro bike riders launch themselves from Garden of the Gods and race downtown at upwards of 50 mph.

It’s the prologue of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and it follows the Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon over the weekend.

I’m totally psyched!

And it reminds me how lucky I am to live in a community that embraces cycling and encourages it with a network of neighborhood trails.

The trail system isn’t perfect. I’ve done my share of bushwacking when a trail abruptly ended. And I’ve gotten lost a few times trying to find connections.

But I’ve also lived in cities where I wouldn’t dare commute 10 miles on a bike, as I do from my Rockrimmon home to downtown.

Check out a video I made of my commute.

Hang on as you climb onto the handlebars of my old Stumpjumper and rocket along with me at 60 mph — thanks to the magic of time-lapse editing — down the Pikes Peak Greenway along Monument Creek, over to the Shooks Run Trail and finally to The Gazette.

Or take a longer, full-length 40-minute trip with notes inserted to point out landmarks and street-crossnigs.

It was a blast making the video. And I’d love to see videos of your commutes.

Signs like these help trail riders find their way through the city's network.

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Some signs are in better shape than others.

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Here's another map in the Patty Jewitt Neighborhood

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It got me wondering about the status of area trails, especially with the severe budget cuts experienced by the parks agency.

Actually, a lot is going on.

Kurt Schroeder, manager of the city’s parks, trails and open space, said his staff remains committed to developing trails and piecing together missing links that sometimes frustrate folks on two wheels.

“It’s a slow process,” Schroeder said. “We have little money for rebuilding old trails. But we can still get money for new trails.”

In fact, the city expects to finish in October most of the 3.5-mile Midland Trail from America the Beautiful Park to Manitou Springs, thanks to a $2 million lottery grant from Great Outdoors Colorado, or GOCO.

Trail is being built along Sand Creek out east as well as from North Nevada Avenue to Dublin Boulevard near Cottonwood Creek, said Sarah Bryarly, the city’s trail guru.

Her wish list includes expanding the Rock Island Trail, punching Shooks Run Trail south to Fountain Creek and expanding Cottonwood Creek Trail from Vincent Drive.

It all sounds great to me. I can’t wait to ride them.

And I can’t wait to see your photos and videos!

Here’s some of the sights you’ll see on my video:

On my commute, I enjoy crossing the bridges over Monument Creek and its tributaries.

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Going under bridges can be spooky like this crossing under Pikes Peak Avenue.

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Stay alert. You never know when you might encounter wildlife . . . even the prehistoric kind.

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The city has placed mile markers along the Pikes Peak Greenway to help you keep track or your progress.

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This is one of my favorite spots popping up from under the Garden of the Gods Road bridge and seeing the sunflowers along the edge of Pikeview Reservior and Pikes Peak in the background.

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I like this overpass that carries you over Cache La Poudre Street and into Shooks Run Park.

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Down along Monument Creek near Roswell neighborhood.

Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department has a trails page with tons of useful information.

Check out this

trails page: http://www.springsgov.com/Page.aspx?NavID=1881
pikes peak greenway trail: http://www.springsgov.com/units/parksrec/maps/pdfmaps/24x36ppgy.pdf
midland trail map: http://www.springsgov.com/Page.aspx?NavID=2289

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This is the approximate route taken by Luna, a dog owned by Daryl and Cindy Anderson. Luna escaped a relative's fenced yard and made her way about three miles toward home before she was killed on railroad tracks near Rockrimmon.

Luna

Some good is coming from the sad story of Luna, the dog who escaped a fenced yard and tried to make her way home only to be killed on the railroad tracks along Monument Creek in Rockrimmon.  

Luna’s remains were found by Tom, a Rockrimmon resident, who removed the collar and called Luna’s owners, Daryl and Cindy Anderson, to inform them of Luna’s death.  

Tom called the Andersons himself because he said the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region refused to take a “deceased animal” report.  

He said HSPPR staff told him to call the Colorado Springs street department to report a dead animal. Tom was outraged and feared Luna’s owners would never know what happened to their pet.  

Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region

So he called The Gazette and Luna’s story was the subject of Monday’s Side Streets column. That’s when things happened at HSPPR.  

I received an email Monday from Jan McHugh-Smith, president and CEO of the humane society.  

She told me she was changing policy immediately to accept dead pet reports and log them in a notebook available for viewing at the society’s Lost and Found Pet area.  

Here’s the text of her note to me:  

Dear Bill,  

 After your story was published our currently policies on lost and found pets were reviewed, and we would like to update you and make some corrections to your article entitled: SIDE STREETS: Neighbor helps family get closure for lost pet, questions humane society policy.  

Jan McHugh-Smith, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region

 From this point forward, the City of Colorado Springs Street Division will directly email their finished work logs (recording dead animal description and location) to our lost and found email. We will be publishing all of the logs in a notebook in our Lost and Found Pets area. This will allow owners to read the logs, and hopefully be able to identify if their pet has been found deceased in the city. We will also match the city work logs with lost animals that have been reported to HSPPR to try to reconnect additional stray pets. 

 Our call center will also be taking found reports on deceased animals, and will try to combine logs and reports if efforts are found duplicated. 

 The Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region works diligently to reunited owners with lost companion animals; we reunited 4,199 stray animals last year alone. Tom should be commended in his actions, and his Good Samaritan efforts will bring positive changes in our policies. 

 Sincerely,   

 Jan McHugh-Smith 

President and CEO  

I should note all the good work HSPPP already does on behalf of pets and their owners in the region. 

According to the 2010 annual report, the society had 21,100 pets in its care in Colorado Springs. 

It handled 7,700 adoptions in addition to the 4,199 reuinted pets and fostered 450 pets. 

It’s animal law enforcement unit responded to 24,000 calls for service and conducted 3,800 cruelty investigations. 

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This was Luna, the beloved pet of Daryl and Cindy Anderson and their family.

Luna

Luna was a pound puppy, adopted by the Andersons from a humane society shelter in Las Vegas about 10 years ago.

A couple weeks ago, Luna was visiting a relative’s house near Flintridge and Dublin. She apparently panicked when left in a fenced yard, dug her way out and vanished far from her home near Garden of the Gods Road and Centennial Boulevard.

Daryl said he and his sons put 100 miles on their car searching for Luna.

They reported Luna to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, checked its kennels daily to see if Luna was among its captured strays and they scanned reports on the society’s lost pet website.

Then, late last week, Daryl received a call from a stranger who said he had Luna’s collar.

Tom, who declined to reveal his full name, had taken the collar off the dog’s remains, which he found on railroad tracks that run past Rockrimmon.

Tom had noticed Luna’s remains as he walked his own dogs along Monument Creek near Mark Dabling Boulevard in Rockrimmon.

Luna had died trying to get home from the relative’s house. (See map of Luna’s approximate route at the bottom of this blog).

She had crossed Academy and Union boulevards, Interstate 25 and the creek. But she’d failed to cross the tracks safely.

 I’m guessing she made it a few blocks north to Cottonwood Creek, followed it west to Monument Creek and then a bit south along Mark Dabling before she strayed onto the tracks.

I’d guess she’d gone about three miles!

Daryl tells me Tom and his wife not only showed him the location of Luna’s remains, they helped him retrieve the remains. He described it as “a very messy and unpleasant task.”

“Tom’s a wonderful person,” Daryl said. “That gentleman was the best ‘Good Samaritan’ that I could have run into.”

Tom said he braved the decomposing remains because he, too, had lost a pet cat, Barney, a few years ago and never learned its fate.

He didn’t want Daryl’s family to wonder about Luna, the chow mix they had adopted from a humane society in Las Vegas.

“They needed closure,” Tom said. “We never got closure with Barney.”

Normally, the story of Luna, Daryl and Tom would would end there. But this incident raised questions in Tom’s mind about how the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region deals with dead pets.

Tom was surprised to learn he could not make a “deceased animal” report after he saw Luna’s remains.

“They said they don’t do that,” he said. “They just wanted me to call the city to get it hauled away. I was more interested in reuniting it with its owner.”

So he didn’t call the city street division to retrieve the remains. That was a mistake, the society says.

Crews would’ve picked up Luna’s remains and called the society promptly.

“Every day, the city gives us detailed reports of the deceased pets they pick up,” said Erica Meyer, society spokeswoman. “If there’s a collar, they remove it, and give it to us with the report so we can call the owner.

“If there is no collar, they give us breed information, size, color, location. Then we try to match it with the lost pet reports we have.”

Allowing folks like Tom to report animal remains would cause duplication and confusion, she said.

And deceased pet reports are not displayed online, as Tom proposes, to protect owners from shock.

“Rather than putting it on the web, we have a department that notifies owners personally,” Meyer said.

“We work really hard to reunite people with their lost pets, whether they are alive or deceased.

“We have an entire unit that works on it every day.”

Meyer reminds everyone to call the Humane Society immediately if they see an injured animal or suspect it may be suffering. Don’t always assume an animal that has been struck by a car, for example, is dead.

The number is 473-1741.

To report a dead animal in the city, call the street division at 385-5934.

n El Paso County, call 520-6460.

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Folks in Stratmoor Hills, an unincorporated  neighborhood sandwiched between Fort Carson and Colorado Springs aren’t the complaining type.

Stratmoor Hills in a 2009 photo by The Gazette's Carol Lawrence

They are used to living on the doorstep of the massive Army post and for decades have put up with the inconveniences of heavy traffic, payday loan and pawn shops, as well as strip clubs that cluster just outside the gates.

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But they are unhappy about Fort Carson’s plans for a new railroad spur that will run 4,200 feet into their neighborhood, past their Stratmoor Hills Elementary School.

Here’s a look at preliminary plans from FlashEarth.

The spur is part of a $14 million project by the Army Corps of Engineers to expand the 70-acre Fort Carson railyard by adding five to eight spurs to quicken the deployment of troops.

The spur planned for the neighborhood would run along existing tracks, which connect to the main line along Monument Creek. It would allow the Army to temporarily store 44 rail cars during a loading/unloading process.

Neighbors fear the Army will store cars on the spur routinely, attracting graffiti vandals and forcing neighbors to look at the cars, which run 95 feet each in length.

The Army promises no cars will be parked on the spur more than 24 hours and the spur will actually shorten the amount of time cars in in the neighborhood now.

Plus, the Army said it will be safer for children going to school because it will build a new pedestrian overpass and close an existing foot path over the tracks.

Here’s a briefing paper the Army prepared for the neighborhood. However, plans have changed significantly since it was drafted. For example, a second spur into the neighborhood, mentioned in the plan, has been dropped.

In May, the Army is expected to begin an environmental impact assessment related to the project.

 Fort Carson spokeswoman Dee McNutt said that is the best time for neighbors to voice their concerns about the project. She said public comment is a major component of the assessment and taken very seriously.

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A huge new Lowe’s home improvement center opened in earlly March as part of the new University Village Colorado on North Nevada Avenue.

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It sits on the east side of Monument Creek across from the Crestline Manor Mobile Home Park, which has been there for years along Mark Dabling Boulevard.

Lowe’s and the rest of the new shopping area sit atop a new retaining wall, towering over the mobile home park on the other side.

The problem is that Lowe’s has an outdoor garden center and lumberyard. To communicate with employees who are outside, it installed a public address system.

Folks in the Crestline Manor must have thought Lowe’s was hosting a heavy metal rock concert. The volume was so high on the speakers that they could hear every word. Often, from inside their homes.

Even worse, the announcements started at dawn and went well into the evening.

So, a neighbor contacted The Gazette.

Problem solved.

A call to Lowe’s produced immediate results. The store manager turned down the speakers and drove over to Crestline to pass out his card and solicit input for residents to see if it was still too loud.

Neighbors are grateful the big box retailer isn’t a big bully. Lowe’s pledged to be a good neighbor to Crestline. So far, that promise is being kept.

In fact, anyone with questions or complaints about Lowe’s is invited to contact the company:

Lowe’s Customer Care by mail:

Lowe’s Customer Care
P.O. Box 1111
North Wilkesboro, NC 28656

By phone:            1-800-445-6937
By email:             customercare@lowes.com

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A Side Streets reader, Jordan Strub, asked me if I’d ever noticed the Fillmore Street bridge.

Specifically, he was curious about the underside of the bridge that carries Fillmore Street over Monument Creek just east of the interchange with Interstate 25.

Here’s a look from www.FlashEarth.com:

Here’s a photo of the bridge taken by Side Streets reader Jordan Strub:

In the photo, piers 2 and 3 are visible. And one of the tilting rocker bearing can be seen at the end of pier 3. The photo is looking south from the Pikes Peak Greenway trail.

Here’s a closer look at the pier and its rocker bearings:

 Here’s an even closer look:

There are 18 rocker bearings on the two piers and they are in various stages of tilting. The worst are at 10 degrees on pier 3 while those on pier 2 measure at 5 degrees.

Engineers with the Colorado Department of Transportation say the rocker bearings don’t need to be reset until the tilting reaches 15 degrees. Below is a view from the south.

Resetting them is not eash. The bridge must be jacked up and the rockers placed precisely between the pier and girder to safely transfer the weight of the bridge.

For you hard-core engineer-wanna-be types, here is a blueprint showing a rocker bearing on the right. This is from the CDOT Web site.

This is a detail from a Colorado Department of Transportation blueprint of the bridge rocker bearings.

 CDOT bridge expert Jeff Anderson said the Fillmore Street bridge was built in 1961 and widened in 1971 and was known as bridge No. I-17-P. It was state-owned until 2007 when the city took ownership in a swap for Powers Boulevard.

While it was CDOT property, it was  inspected every two years — like every bridge in the state, Anderson said. In it’s last state inspection on Nov. 29, 2006, the bridge was given an 83 sufficiency rating on a scale of 0-100. The deck rated a 6. The superstructure a 7 on a 0-10 scale.

“That structure was still in good shape,” Anderson said, despite the tilting rocker bearings. Bridges must fall to a 50 sufficiency rating and be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete before they are replaced.

Anderson attributed the tilting rockers to natural movement in the bridge. He said it shifted east, flush against the abutment. And pier 3 moved west during a flood years ago.

Here’s a look at the east abutment. There is no gap. In fact, the railing above are smashed together.

Want to see what happens when rocker bearings fail?

Here’s a photo from July 2005 when a rocker bearing supporting a ramp on Interstate 787 in Albany, N.Y., failed.

The following is an excerpt from the August 3, 2005 edition of the Albany Times Union www.timesunion.com).

“A routine bridge inspection nearly two years ago found serious problems with the bearings supporting a section of elevated highway that ruptured and dropped 2 feet last week.

Yet, state transportation officials said they made no plans to fix the problems with the Empire State Plaza ramp before the next planned inspection this fall.

The overall rating on the 24-section ramp that links Interstate 787 northbound with the plaza was set at 5, or generally “good,” on a scale of 1 to 7 in the November 2003 inspection report. A set of bearings atop the concrete pier where the break occurred, however, received a rating of just 2.

“One of DOT’s top engineers said it’s now clear that the poorly rated rocker bearings, steel supports designed to accommodate weather-related expansions and contractions of bridge sections, could have been a factor.

“There were some low-rated bearing elements that may have had something to do with this,” said George Christian, the chief structural engineer for the state Department of Transportation.

“The set of poorly rated bearings was on the section of the ramp that remained atop the pier, sliding toward the section that tumbled from its bearings and nearly fell off. The group of bearings was rated so poorly because they were tipped at an unusually extreme angle, Christian said.

“It was tilted, definitely, more than we would have expected it to be tilted for the conditions at the time of the inspection,” he said.”

Ooops!

Here’s the full text of my Side Streets column that appeared in the June 28, 2009, Gazette:

Jordan Strub was riding his bicycle on the Pikes Peak Greenway trail when he looked up at the bridge carrying Fillmore Street high over the trail and Monument Creek.

Between the horizontal steel girders of the bridge and the vertical concrete piers that rise from the creek bed is a series of stubby, rectangular steel supports – sort of like big shoe boxes – rounded on top and bottom.

Strub noticed that many of the supports are no longer standing straight up and down. In fact, several are tilted at alarming angles.

He wondered if it was an optical illusion because of the slanting bridge, which is lower on the east and rises to meet the west abutment.

He wondered if the bridge, built in 1961 and widened in 1971, had been moving.

He wondered if the bridge was safe.

“I wondered ‘does anyone else ever notice things like this?’ ” said Strub.

Turns out, they do. A number of people besides Strub have seen the twisting, tilting rockers and contacted the city over the years.

But Strub had trouble reaching city engineers, so he contacted Side Streets – or, in this case, Side Bridges – and we got answers.

“The bridge is stable and fine,” said Dan Krueger, a senior civil engineer in Colorado Springs’ engineering department.

He explained that the tipping steel shoeboxes are called rocker bearings or panels. They were designed to rotate to compensate for movement in the bridge.

In this case, Krueger said, the bridge slid east over the years and pier 3 shifted west in a flood years ago, causing the rockers to twist and tilt.

Rockers were common on bridges of the era, although they were abandoned by engineers decades ago in favor of sliding teflon-coated steel plates and thick slabs of neoprene.

Until 2007, the bridge was owned, inspected regularly and maintained by the Colorado Department of Transportation. It noted the rocking rockers as early as 1998, said Jeff Anderson, who manages the CDOT’s bridge inspection program.

“They look funny when they start to tilt,” he said.

Funny? Scary might be a better word.

Anderson said CDOT experts measured the rockers on pier 3 at a 10-degree slant. Pier 2 rockers tilt just 5 degrees. Rockers must reach 15 degrees before CDOT recommends taking action.

“It’s safe,” Anderson said.

So why not pull them out and straighten them up?

“You have to jack up the bridge and reset the rockers to vertical,” Anderson said. “It’s not really very easy.”

At one time, CDOT hoped to rebuild the Fillmore and Interstate 25 interchange and replace the bridge. But the money ran out so it sits.

Despite CDOT’s assurance the rockers have not moved in years, city experts do a visual check every 90 days, and survey crews verify its stability every six months.

“We’re just keeping an eye on it,” Krueger said. “We will monitor it indefinitely.”

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