Two weeks after signs were posted to keep large trucks from crossing a Washington Street bridge, efforts to turn vehicles around have been spotty and one business owner said he believes the city is being too cautious.

&#8220We’re working on getting the bridge re-evaluated,” said Louie Miller, owner of Riverside Construction, located south of the bridge at Clark Street and one of the businesses most affected by having to use alternate routes.

&#8220It’s going to be a private thing,” Miller said of any new assessment. &#8220I think the trucking industry is probably going to have to go with some other opinions.”

He said meetings with city Public Works Director James &#8220Bubba” Rainer have centered on raising the bridge’s 24,000-ton limit, which Miller said was far below what he believes the structure can handle.

&#8220I have witnessed enough loads going across that bridge with far more than 80,000 pounds on them,” he said. &#8220Those loads have run that limit and it’s structurally sound. … From my experts and myself looking at it, the bridge is sound for that kind of service.”

Rainer, however, said the weight limits were set by state and county evaluations and that the planned $5 million project to replace the bridge is going to go forward.

&#8220We’ve had it evaluated with two different engineering firms and both have agreed that the posting there is correct,” he said, adding that he had not heard suggestions to raise the weight limits. &#8220If that were the case we would probably have the firm that did the detailed analysis come in to see how it differed or why it differed from what the other firms did.”

&#8220But I don’t know what good it would do,” he said of an independent assessment. &#8220I don’t think anybody’s going to come in and say the bridge doesn’t need to be replaced.”

For now, police on patrol will continue to make enforcing current weight restrictions a priority, said Deputy Police Chief Richard O’Bannon. Officers have been consistently turning around 18-wheelers, buses and other heavy vehicles, he said, adding that no count has been kept.

Still, some rigs traversing the main north-south artery between the city’s major industrial center north of town and Interstate 20 to the south have ignored signs posted March 19 that warn large trucks to turn around and instead use U.S. 61 North five miles to the north. That detour adds about 20 miles to routes for some rigs.

Employees of the Dixiana Motel, just south of the bridge on Washington Street, said they had noticed officers stopping several trucks around the bridge last weekend. Some rigs, though, said employee Anthony Johnson, have continued to cross the 100-yard concrete span over rail tracks.

&#8220I’ve seen a couple trucks go through there,” said Johnson’s colleague at the motel, Sandy Hackmeier.

At least one local resident has called 911 dispatchers to report trucks crossing the bridge since the signs were put in place.

&#8220You’re not going to get all of them, but you’re going to get the overwhelming majority,” said North Ward Alderman Michael Mayfield.

The bridge is near the entrance to the Isle of Capri Casino-Hotel complex and has steep embankments subject to erosion, which have led to previous closures and plans to replace the bridge entirely. A $5 million project, funded through Congressional appropriations, is still in the works. Public Works Director James &#8220Bubba” Rainer said that work will begin once the city has finished putting together a design for the new bridge and hired a contractor to take out the existing roadway and begin rebuilding. It will take about three years.

Until then, he said, the weight restrictions are necessary as a safety precaution on an aging structure that a 2002 state inspection had found shifted about 1 1/2 inches to the east. A partial collapse in the mid-1980s closed the bridge for several years. That closure came about a decade after the bridge’s south end sunk in the 1970s.