By Jessica Mathews/News@whmi.com


Design proposals have been approved for bridges that remain closed in two different local municipalities.

The Livingston County Road Commission board met virtually Tuesday morning and accepted design proposals for the Bowdish Road Bridge in Unadilla Township and the White Road Bridge in Deerfield Township. Both bridges are currently closed.

Requests were sent out to six engineering consulting firms and the board accepted the low-bid from Brechting Bridge & Engineering or BBE in the amount of $58,760. It’s a small engineering firm from Spring Lake specializing in bridges and the resolution that was approved authorized staff to enter into a contract with the company for design.

Road Commission Managing Director Steve Wasylk commented that part of his reasoning in trying to start a bridge repair program is to get bridges like these repaired because they’ll never qualify for any federal or state money.

Of the six requests for proposals that were sent out, three were received and all were all said to be good firms. It was stated during the meeting that Brechting Bridge & Engineering has designed several bridges for the Livingston County Road Commission in the past and comes highly recommended by the Michigan Department of Transportation and other municipalities. The BBE bid was quite a bit less than the others but it was stated the company has very little overhead and does a great job and designed the large Hamburg Road Bridge west of Maltby Road a few years ago.