01/05/2022
Looks like our office might continue to look over this bridge a bit longer!
For Immediate Release
Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge WIN court battle!
(01/05/2022 Brunswick and Topsham Maine)
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston issued a narrow ruling in favor of the Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Historic Bridge Foundation, reprimanding the Federal Highway Administration for the made-up “service life costs” MDOT used in attempting to justify their plan to demolish the Frank J. Wood Bridge.
“We are ecstatic with the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the Maine Department of Transportation is not above the law,” said John Graham, from the Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge. “We want to thank our attorneys, our engineers, and the thousands of local residents who favor rehabilitating the bridge for their support though this five-and-a-half-year battle against bureaucratic arrogance and indifference to the law.”
Case background
At a public meeting in April 2016, MDOT announced the planned destruction of the Frank J. Wood Bridge, the community’s landmark, and an instantly recognizable symbol of Topsham
and Brunswick, ME. This announcement was made before undertaking the historic and environmental reviews required by law to reach such a decision. Residents who objected to this premature decision, many of them strangers at the time, met several days later to form Friends of the Frank J. Wood Bridge. Coming from all walks of life, ages, and political views, they banded together and took on the Goliath of MDOT, an agency so steeped in arrogance that it proceeded as if it were above the law.
The Friends joined in the review process for the project – spending hundreds of hours attending meetings, reviewing reports and materials, and ultimately hiring their own engineers and attorneys to try to compel MDOT to simply follow the law. Along the way, they were joined by the Historic Bridge Foundation, Maine Preservation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and adjacent property owner Waterfront Maine. The Friends are very grateful for the expertise and experience all these allies brought to the process.
From the beginning, the Friends pointed out that if the bridge was preservable, it should be rehabilitated as required by federal law. When MDOT’s engineers concluded the historic bridge could be rehabbed to safely serve another 75+ years, the only way MDOT could justify its destruction was to grossly inflate the long-term costs of maintenance for the historic bridge and grossly underestimate the construction costs and long-term cost of maintenance for the new bridge – supported by a made-up “service life cost” analysis that skewed the comparison of costs in favor of their preferred outcome.
The Friends argued that, in addition to issues with the long-term cost estimates, the $13 million cost estimate for the proposed new bridge (which was the reason it was selected) was understated by millions of dollars. MDOT’s latest budget for the project now demonstrates –that the new bridge will cost $21.9 million For just a fraction of that cost, the historic bridge can be rehabilitated.
In round one of our lawsuit, the judge at the Federal District Court in Portland acknowledged significant issues with MDOT’s cost estimates but then wrongly concluded that MDOT had the discretion to make the decision to go ahead with the new bridge anyway. This seriously missed the letter and intent of Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act, so the Friends, the Trust, and the Foundation appealed to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. The three-judge panel has agreed that the agencies had artificially increased the cost differential between rehabilitating and replacing the bridge and rejected MDOT’s made up costing methodology.
Scott Hanson, a member of the Friends concluded: “The law is clear. The bridge is historic and must be preserved if it is prudent and feasible to do so. From the beginning it was clear MDOT had an agenda – building a new bridge. MDOT didn’t care that the modern concrete highway bridge’s design was completely unfitted to the location, connecting two historic districts, and would cover the natural waterfall where Native Americans fished for millennia, while also impacting the future ability to build a functional fish passage for endangered species at the adjacent dam. They apparently did not care what the law requires when a project impacts historic resources.
The Friends president John Graham stated: “MDOT has used their powerful propaganda machine to influence local officials and organizations and spew falsehoods and mischaracterizations to get their way, not caring how their lies split our community. The Court
has read the record and not the press releases and has vacated the agencies’ decision. We now call on MDOT to begin an honest and transparent review process. We ask Governor Mills to close the door on this shameful leftover episode from the previous administration and immediately order MDOT to hire an engineering firm with experience rehabilitating historic bridges to begin planning for the rehabilitation of the Frank J Wood Bridge. The actual numbers, appropriately discounted, make clear that without MDOT “cooking the books,” their case for demolition and new construction is weak. The choice is easy, rehab the Frank J. Wood Bridge now.”
Media Contact:
John Graham
Email:[email protected]
207-491
