Norfolk Southern Quiet as Concrete Falls From Lake Avenue Bridge

There have been no confirmations of repairs of the Lake Avenue Bridge near Edgewater Park made by owner Norfolk Southern. Residents still feel its state is potentially life-endangering. Credit: Mark Oprea

Last December, following roughly seven years of neighborhood ire, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown wrote to railway magnate Norfolk Southern to lambast the embattled company about the decrepit state of their bridge just south of Edgewater Park.

Norfolk Southern owns 20 rail properties in the city; 16 of them, Brown pointed out, were in less-than-ideal condition: rusting beams, crumbling concrete. Months earlier, after Brown’s first letter that May, Norfolk Southern “took measures” to clean up the Lake Avenue Bridge—scrubbing walls, throwing plywood boards above the sidewalk.

Yet, Brown saw the repairs as nothing more than half-assed.

“As evidenced by the current condition of the bridge,” he wrote, “your company’s efforts were clearly insufficient.”

A year later, Brown’s assessment doesn’t seem too far off.

With its cracked rust iron facade, still decrepit walls and falling concrete, the Lake Avenue Bridge is, to this day, nowhere near the complete rehabilitation that nearby neighbors have been asking for since 2016. Those efforts became more organized in 2018, when the Friends of the Lake Avenue Bridge group was created—and took clean-up efforts into their own hands.

All while Norfolk Southern itself keeps mum. Last September, the rail company touted a future $240 million of investments in bridge projects across Ohio, though it was unclear whether or not that included a facelift for Lake Avenue.

The company seemed to, however, discredit the cries on the ground, while attempting to play up the plywood boards they installed to calm complaints of falling debris.

“Our bridges in Ohio are often landmarks in our local communities,” a statement to News 5 read. “And how they look can be a resident’s first perception of how safe they are.”

The long-running silence has only pushed Nikki Hudson, an Edgewater-area activist who helms the Friends of Lake Avenue Bridge, to seek out backup avenues where Norfolk Southern can eventually be held accountable.

Following the bridge’s marking as a historical landmark by the city in 2022, Hudson hopes to take that recognition further and have the bridge be placed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks, which would bring federal standards for beautification. Hudson told Scene the bridge got “preliminary approval” for such status earlier this year.

Status that couldn’t come sooner.

A two-feet slab of concrete fell off the bridge’s northern wall on Thursday. Credit: Mark Oprea

“It’s just concerning that the bridge keeps dropping huge chunks of concrete—another one just fell off [last] Thursday!” Hudson said. “This was by far the biggest piece of concrete that’s fallen yet.”

Ward 15 Councilwoman Jenny Spencer said she’s somewhat skeptical that marking the Lake Avenue Bridge as federally-recognized might be the pressure needed to budge a major rail corporation. Even the city landmark status, after two years, she said “hasn’t worked as a strategy.”

Spencer’s decision to retire from City Council after next year, along with 2025’s new ward boundaries, brings up questions as to whether or not Edgewater’s next representative will care to put similar pressure on the railway behemoth.

“We have been monitoring this bridge for years,” she told Scene in a text message. “And we need answers from Norfolk Southern about why this happened” in the first place.

Today, Hudson feels getting Norfolk Southern to comply—it’s the only rail company to still use the line!—means continuing her grassroots efforts. Hosting cleanup rallies. Planting flowers. Spray-painting over grime and graffiti.

Yet any major restoration of its cast iron and support beams, which might be hazardous to passing cars, would require money in the six or seven figures. A repair like the Ravenna Road Bridge in Portage County, a $1.6 million overhaul that, according to The Portager, will be using funds from Norfolk Southern.

Hudson’s hope lies in the state. Namely, Section 4955.24 of Ohio Law, which could be used by a court to fine Norfolk Southern $100 a day if the bridge is proven to be in such bad shape that iron “can fall or drop through” it. The city of Macedonia used the law to score $500,000 for a similar bridge repair.

“Safety has always been our number one concern,” Hudson said.

As is those who work everyday beside it.

“You could see the piece—it fell!” an employee at the Edgewater Deli, a stone’s throw from the Lake Avenue Bridge, told Scene, referring to Thursday’s incident. “Last year, they came, there was water leaking, and they fixed the water leaking.”

“But me?” he added. “I don’t feel safe walking under that bridge—never.”