A red and white DANGER sign reading UNSAFE BRIDGE CONDITIONS, KEEP OUT, posted on a tree at the trail entrance to the Volunteers Bridge, with the wooden boardwalk stretching into the marsh reeds behind it.
Petition · To the Mayor, the Community Preservation Committee, and the Conservation Commission

Repair the Volunteers Bridge.

At 100 signatures, we deliver this petition to the City.

Every name is delivered. When the goal is reached, the petition goes to the Mayor, the Community Preservation Committee, and the Conservation Commission with every signature attached, and stays open for the next delivery.

— Our position —

Neighbors built the Volunteers Bridge with their own hands in 1997.

The City’s own engineers called for its repair in 2016.

The City awarded $66,148.66 in Community Preservation funds to fix it in 2022, with all work to be completed within one year.

The work has not been done. Today a DANGER sign hangs at the entrance.

We, the undersigned residents of Salem, ask our City to do one simple thing: the work it already promised, already scoped, and already paid for. Repair the Volunteers Bridge.

Every fact above is documented: the 2016 KZLA/Childs Engineering trails assessment, the June 30, 2022 CPA award letter, and the 2022 Salem Sound Coastwatch funding application. See the full story with sources.

Specifically, we ask the City to:

  1. 1

    Account publicly for the 2022 award of $66,148.66. Was it spent, partially spent, lapsed, or reallocated? The award required quarterly reports beginning November 10, 2022. The answer belongs to the public.

  2. 2

    Fund a real repair, not another study. Volunteers built this bridge in 1997 and patched it for decades, but a rebuild that meets code — guardrails, new decking, accessible ramps — is professional construction work. Fund it like one: the 2022 award, plus a developer contribution, built by qualified contractors. No new feasibility study is needed for work assessed in 2016 and funded in 2022.

  3. 3

    Write bridge support into the South Campus Order of Conditions. The developer promised trail improvements “in concert with the Conservation Commission” to win this public land. The Order should require developer-funded materials, or a dedicated bridge-repair fund held in escrow, before construction begins.

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The full story

The Bridge

Warned in 2016. Funded in 2022. Posted DANGER in 2026. Every source cited.