The Virginia Department of Transportation has reopened the Route 727, Airport Road, bridge over North River in Rockingham County. This location is between Route 11 and Route 696, near Mount Crawford and Bridgewater.

On June 4, VDOT conducted a safety inspection of the bridge and found significant cracks and a fracture within the bridge structure. The bridge stringers and floor beams also showed significant deterioration. The inspection was a regularly scheduled inspection by VDOT bridge safety inspectors.

Motorists using the bridge should note that the bridge is posted for six tons. This means that a sign is posted by the bridge informing drivers that a vehicle weighing more than six tons is prohibited from crossing the bridge. Prior to the closure the bridge had been posted with a nine-ton limit.

VDOT Staunton Bridge Engineer Keith Weakley, P. E., says, “VDOT staff have observed frequent disregard of the bridge posting limit by various truck drivers. Degradation of the bridge will accelerate if overweight vehicles continue to use the bridge.”

Virginia State Police 1st Sgt. Bryan Hutcheson says, “Violators of the bridge posting can potentially face a variety of state and civil penalties. In some cases the fines can range in the tens of thousands of dollars.”

Weakley adds that VDOT is in the preliminary engineering phase for planning a new structure at this site using district bridge funding. Construction is still several years away. This bridge project has been in the six year plan previous to the June 4 closure.