June 9: With bridge shut, ferries give Winona a lift

WINONA, MINN. - With views of the closed Hwy. 43 bridge and a dilapidated steamboat replica perched on a levee, more than 1,000 commuters made their way across the Mississippi River on Monday aboard a pair of excursion boats brought to Winona to help keep the city -- and its economy -- moving.

The boats are part of an elaborate transit plan designed to get many of an estimated 2,500 Wisconsin residents to their jobs in Winona after last week's abrupt closure of the bridge they normally drive over. With the nearest crossings 35 miles away and gas topping $4 a gallon, park-and-ride lots have been created up and down the river in towns where mass transit is something mostly seen on TV.

"I was kind of ready for mass chaos," said Amy Pronschinski of Waumandee, Wis., who works as an ultrasound technician in Winona. But the ferry service is "a wonderful thing," she said.

Even with waits and bus rides on either side, Pronschinski figured she came out ahead: Driving the detour through Wabasha wouldn't have been any faster, and it would've cost a lot more than the $15 Winona weekly transit pass, which includes buses and ferries.

The first crossing of the service, which was set up in less than a week, was scheduled for 5:30 a.m. But it was about 25 minutes late, meaning that a carefully plotted chart of ferry landings and bus departures wasn't as relevant as everyone had hoped.

But it's hard to find a Midwesterner who doesn't love a boat ride on a warm day, so the kinks were largely taken in stride.

A straight shot

The actual crossing of the river takes about 5 or 6 minutes. It's more or less a straight shot from the beach at Latsch Island to Levee Park downtown. But a catamaran-style boat usually used for nature tours, the Mississippi Explorer, and a 149-passenger yacht called the Island Girl cruised at odd angles in the swift current.

Tickets weren't being checked too carefully on the first day. The goal was to get everybody, from the women in business attire to the guy in the Packers jacket, off the beach and on their way to work as quickly as possible.

After landing on the levee side a little before 6 a.m., Kelly Michaels of Galesville, Wis., took a seat aboard a shuttle bus with the word "west" hand-painted on the windshield to indicate which end of town it served.

Michaels had his lunch cooler on his lap and was headed to a company that makes winches, hoists and cranes. "I got on the calculator, and I'm saving lots of money," he said. "I wish they'd do it all the time."

Monica Hennessy Mohan, who's in charge of transit for the city of Winona, spent a harried morning at the levee but noted the prevalence of smiles among riders. She said she'd heard some "constructive comments," such as requests for canopies near the docks and for bike racks on both banks. She said that the Explorer had made some runs across the river over the weekend but that no firm plans had been made for service this coming weekend.

The summer timing of the bridge closure gave Winona officials some advantages beyond the weather: Winona State University is not in session, reducing travel demand in town and freeing up at least one bus that's serving as a shuttle; and on the Wisconsin side, one of the four park-and-ride locations is at a high school.

Some of the commuters mused about how their Monday morning might have gone if it had been raining, or what might happen if the bridge is still closed when winter comes.

Gusset plates

The Minnesota Department of Transportation shut the 67-year-old Hwy. 43 bridge to all traffic last week after finding corrosion on some of the gusset plates. Flaws in such plates are suspected in the deadly collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge last summer in Minneapolis.

Winona Mayor Jerry Miller, who was walking around the levee Monday with a T-shirt advertising a fundraising race called the "Steamboat Stumble," said the fate of the bridge still isn't known. It might reopen fully, or just to pedestrians, or to single-lane traffic, or not at all.

One commuter who is hoping for the bridge's full and speedy return is Charity Escobedo. She might get more value out of her weekly pass than just about anyone: She works a split shift as the lead agent at the Amtrak station in Winona and had been making four 20-minute drives each day between Galesville and her job.

Last week, when the bridge closed, she spent $150 on gas. Dressed in her uniform and riding aboard the Explorer, she expressed hope that her new commute would work out and that she'd be able to take one of the evening boats home -- "as long as my train's not late."

As her ferry slid across the river, Escobedo said she was familiar with the Island Girl. "I've been on there for a dinner cruise," she said.

Jim Foti • 612-673-4491