MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Weight limits recently posted on the Preston Way Bridge in Mount Kisco are a sign that the village is on the right track in its bid to replace the aging span rather than to simply keep repairing it, officials say.
The village is responsible for maintaining two-thirds of Preston Way; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the rest.
The state Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued several “red flags” on the bridge, identifying potentially hazardous structural conditions that require prompt, corrective actions from the bridge’s owner before the next scheduled inspection.
The items identified were pretty much evenly split between the parts of the bridge maintained by the MTA and by the village.
The “load” has now been limited to five tons.
Legally, that means that the maximum safe weight of a vehicle -- and any equipment it is towing -- that can cross the bridge is 10,000 pounds, including those with overweight permits. The five-ton limit applies to individual vehicles, NOT to the weight on the whole bridge at any one time.
That should provide some comfort to drivers who were a tad anxious after seeing the electronic warnings.
During this period of adjustment, traffic police have been reminding tractor trailer drivers etc. to take an alternate route.
Getting Up to Speed
Village Manager Ed Brancati brought everyone up to speed on the bridge’s history and its possible future at the Village Board’s March 17 meeting.
The bridge is one of three that cross over the Metro-North Railroad tracks in the village. Back in the 1930s, the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC) had ordered the elimination of what was then New York Central Railroad’s dangerous grade-level crossings.
Brancati introduced it as “the big challenge” in the capital projects portion of the village’s proposed 2025-2026 budget.
A brand-new bridge could cost roughly $8.6 million. The village has already borrowed $3.6 million -- as authorized -- and it has in hand a 2024 state BRIDGE NY grant of $5 million.
The grant replaced the $1.9 million one it had gotten from the same program in 2019 but never used because of additional costs that were identified and other factors.
The $1.9 million was “great,” because at the time the village thought it was just looking at rehabbing or upgrading the bridge. It changed that position after receiving the results of a subsequent engineering study that found replacement was “the most cost-effective alternative.”
The $5 million grant application was based on the cost of replacing the bridge. Back then, that was $5.4 million. Now it’s $8.6 million.
(When the $5 million and the MTA’s agreeing to waive $850,000 in labor costs are added up, that leaves the village with $2.75 million to pay, Brancati said.)
Replacement has been determined to be the most fiscally viable option since spending millions on repairing a deteriorating 71-year-old bridge would be like throwing good money after bad.
The project is seen as critical to the area’s and the village’s long-term future.
Preston Way links Kisco Avenue and North Bedford Road (Route 117).
In 2018, the bridge had a New York state condition rating of 3.83 on a scale of 1 to 7, according to then-state Assemblyman David Buchwald. A deficient bridge is one with a condition rating of less than 5.0.
The village has been after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) for years to get the agency to cough up what it sees as its “fair share” of the project’s costs.
(Metro-North is a subsidiary of the MTA.)
Brancati explained that the MTA had balked, claiming it didn’t have the money and that it had more “critical” bridges to worry about.
The agency’s never denied responsibility for maintaining its part of Preston Way, but it had argued that since it did not “own” it, it was not on the hook for the costs of building a new bridge.
The village disagreed.
“We believe that the end of maintenance is replacement; it’s part of the maintenance cycle,” he said.
While frustrated with the pushback, the village went ahead with design plans because, Brancati said, it knew it needed “to get this done.”
Meanwhile, the slow rebound of post-pandemic transit ridership – and a five-year roadmap that called for critical upgrades to subways, buses, and commuter railroads – has continued to nudge the MTA toward the edge of the financial cliff.
The transit agency is currently seeking $68 billion from the federal government to fully fund the projects outlined in its capital plan.
“I know they have a lot of stuff that’s failing. I get that, but they also got congestion pricing so I know that they’re doing well,” said Brancati, adding: “I can’t imagine that this (Preston Way) doesn’t make the cut.”
(Congestion pricing charges drivers a toll to enter Manhattan below 60th Street. The MTA has gone to court to fight the Trump administration’s bid to end the program.)
Brancati also pointed out later that between COVID relief, state assistance, sales and payroll tax revenue, and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant money it received because of the Biden administration’s infrastructure law, the MTA got “a ton of money.”
Adding up to roughly $60 billion, that’s “the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Panama,” he noted.
Meanwhile, federal rules and regulations require anyone working “near, on, over, or adjacent” to railroad facilities to put money into a “forced labor” account that covers the hiring of flaggers, inspectors, and so forth, who “make sure that the tracks, the travelers are safe,” Brancati said.
In Preston Way’s case, that would have meant the village would have to fork over an estimated $850,000, a “not insignificant amount of money” that could, he noted, “easily escalate” depending on labor costs.
After much negotiating, the MTA has agreed – in principle – to forego that 850 grand.
That would reduce the total cost of the project to about $7.7 million.
“That’s a huge savings,” Brancati said, adding that the other goal is to secure an agreement about the new Preston Way Bridge from “an operations and maintenance standpoint” that would categorically define “responsibilities that are consistent with what was previously laid out in the PSC order.”
Once that’s in hand, the village intends to pursue similar arrangements for the Lieto Drive Bridge (the substructure is maintained by the MTA; the surface by the village), and the Main Street Bridge (the MTA has substructure; the state DOT takes care of the road surface; the village, the sidewalks and railings.)
In Preston Way’s case, the village is responsible for everything on the surface and the two approach spans. The MTA maintains the bridge’s center support columns and other structures underneath.
“At the end of the day, because there’s joint responsibility, I see it as joint ownership,” he told Halston Media last week.
How Long Will It Take?
Despite the bumps in the road, the village is “moving forward on multiple fronts with the goal of getting this bridge replaced,” Brancati said.
This means Preston Way will be closed for about a year once work starts.
The village had contemplated trying to keep it open -- at least to one-way traffic -- during construction, but that would have extended the project to two years.
“We didn’t think it made sense. We thought it would be a mess, ugly, and a fight the entire time,” he explained, adding that the village ultimately decided to “bite the bullet and have it done in one.”
Details are still being discussed with its traffic engineers, but the detour route will likely be Kisco Avenue to Main Street to North Bedford Road, and vice versa.
The other advantage of having a new bridge is not only that it will meet current codes and standards, but that it can be designed to accommodate wider travel lanes, shoulders, and better sidewalks.
Brancati also pointed out that the volume and weight of traffic on Preston Way now is “far greater than what was envisioned in the 1950s.”
Then there’s the issue of who actually “owns” Preston Way Bridge --that’s different than who’s responsible for maintaining it.
Noting that none of his predecessors had been able to find out a definitive answer to that thorny question, Brancati predicted that if the village ends up in court over the ownership issue, things could be in legal limbo “for years.”
“The bridge will absolutely be closed and there will no traffic on it. I’d probably worry about whether it collapses on the tracks and who they’re going to hold responsible for it,” he said, telling the board that he just wanted to “prepare people for options because that’s what we’re talking about here.”
Hindsight
Deputy Mayor Theresa Flora expressed disappointment that things haven’t progressed as far as she and others had anticipated in 2024.
“There was sort of a timeline,” she said, adding that while she understood that while questions may remain about who’s responsible for what costs, “in a practical sense, it doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to happen.”
Weighing in on the ownership and maintenance issues, Mayor Michael Cindrich worried about spending $3.6 million of “taxpayer money” when the village “may not be liable for that much.”
(It actually would be $2.75 million, once the $850,000 is subtracted.)
He wanted someone to find out how much other communities had to foot for similar bridge projects.
Trustee Tom Luzio said he respected that there’s been a lot of negotiation about who’s going to pay for what, but because the MTA “keeps saying zero it’s up to us to continue to lobby our electeds to pressure (the agency) to try to get that number beyond the $850,000 (waiver of the forced labor account).”
Pointing out that there’s “a healthy contingency number in there as well,” Brancati said Luzio’s points were “good and fairly well taken,” however, no one prior to his arrival had “provided anything in the way of a determination of who actually owns it (the bridge.)”
He allowed that some predecessors may have okayed work on sections for which the village wasn’t responsible.
In Brancati’s opinion, that’s water under the bridge now.
“We are trying to resolve this issue and, at the same time, do it in a way that’s correct and consistent with what’s been done before,” he said.
More importantly, “We’re trying to keep a bridge open and operating for our residents. We could sit here and fight all day and I don’t know if the MTA actually cares whether the bridge is closed or not. I do know that our residents care,” Brancati elaborated.
“I’m trying to balance a lot of competing forces here. I get it. We can continue to fight but, again, my primary goal is to make sure that that the bridge is safe, that it’s not collapsing, that people who are on it are safe, and that we can continue to move forward and ultimately get to replacement,” he added.
Trustee Karen Schleimer raised concerns about how the potential agreement with the MTA will affect the future.
“The real problem is that whatever we come up with, we will have to live with in perpetuity, not only with respect to the Preston Way Bridge, but the two others,” she said, urging the village’s attorney to opine on “what he thinks our obligations are.”
Brancati countered that he didn’t disagree with what Schleimer was saying but noted that the PSC was asked for the records but claimed not to have them. It’s unclear whether the party to the original agreement – New York Central Railroad – ever turned those over to the MTA, he said.
“I’d love to be able to produce something that says the village has NO responsibility for this bridge whatsoever, that it’s always been the railroad’s and they must pay in perpetuity forever. I wish that document existed. I really do. I don’t have it. I’m working with what I have received,” he said.
The $3.6 million remains a planned capital improvement in the village’s proposed 2025-2026 budget, which was also discussed at the March 17 meeting.
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