Private security hired to enforce bridge limit

PROSPECT – A private company has been hired to help enforce the weight limit on the Waldo-Hancock Bridge to relieve scheduling pressures on state police.

State police officers, both patrol troopers and commercial-vehicle enforcement officers, have been stationed at the bridge since July 11 to make sure vehicles weighing more than 12 tons do not drive across.

Maine Department of Transportation officials decided July 11 to ban heavy vehicles after consultants on the bridge’s rehabilitation project determined the two main support cables of the suspension bridge were more deteriorated than previously had been thought.

DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Van Note said Tuesday that Securitas of Bangor was hired by the company overhauling the 72-year-old bridge, Piasecki Steel Construction Corp. of Castleton, N.Y.

Van Note said the security company was hired with “the full knowledge and consent” of DOT, but that he did not know how much Securitas is being paid.

DOT spokeswoman Carol Morris said Tuesday the firm was hired because state police have been stretched thin trying simultaneously to cover their usual duties and to enforce the bridge’s weight limit.

“That’s obviously been putting quite a strain on the resources of state police,” Morris said. “We’re going to try this out for the next two weeks and see how it works.”

Morris said the cost of paying Securitas is expected to be less expensive than reimbursing state police for monitoring traffic on the bridge.

Since the bridge’s rehabilitation project got under way last year, state officials have decided the decaying span has to be replaced by a new bridge – a process that is expected to take two to three years.

On Monday, state police began scheduling only one trooper on the bridge, according to Sgt. Jan Reynolds of the Maine State Police commercial vehicle enforcement unit.

Reynolds said Tuesday that three security officers with Securitas have been stationed at the bridge to keep an eye out for heavy vehicles. There also is one officer in Verona, one at the western end of the bridge at the intersection of Routes 1 and 174 and one at the turnout farther west on Route 1.

If the security officers see a vehicle that might exceed the 12-ton limit, they stop it and notify the state police, who then go to weigh the vehicle, Reynolds said. She said this arrangement is expected to last through the end of next week. What happens after that, she said, is up to DOT.

Commercial truckers, aware of the posting on the bridge and the efforts to enforce the limit, have been using alternate routes, according to Reynolds.

“Pretty much, the trucks are staying away,” she said. “That’s happening more and more.”

Since one truck exceeding the limit managed to avoid being stopped and crossed the bridge July 15, there have been no incidents or charges stemming from the heavy-truck ban, Reynolds said.

By decreasing the number of troopers stationed at the bridge at any one time, according to the sergeant, state police units have had an easier time scheduling for their normal responsibilities.

“I think the stress comes from taking people away from their regular functions,” Reynolds said. “I know the field troops are happy to have their troopers back because everybody is short.”

In related news, Van Note said Tuesday that work crews are still limiting the bridge to one lane of traffic while they remove concrete curbs on the outer edge of each travel lane to lighten the bridge.

Crews are expected within the next few days to limit work on the curb removal to nighttime hours, he said, enabling two lanes of traffic to cross the bridge during the day.