And state lawmakers need to be paying attention when it comes time to carve up the Department of Transportation's budget for repairs and replacements later this spring. But a bridge can be on this unhappy list for a number of reasons, including age and simply being too small in the modern era to afford safe passage to all who need to use it. Nonetheless, it is also true of the Rowan Street bridge over the downtown railroad tracks, and the Grove Street bridge over Cross Creek, that they are potholed and have exposed structural steel. Neither is scheduled for replacement. At least the Cliffdale Road bridge near the Montibello subdivision is on that list.
Work there is supposed to begin in about three years.
The time to pay attention and start laying the financial underpinnings for such repairs and replacements is now, while these concerns are still in the tongue-clucking stage. If such problems are blinked at long enough, eventually someone will have to do some tall explaining for deaths or injuries, as well as massive and unanticipated traffic disruptions afterward. We call on the Cumberland County legislative delegation to turn up the heat on this matter when the General Assembly's session begins.