When Stillwater Bridge in Deerfield was closed by the state three years ago after failing a safety inspection, town officials went into a temporary frenzy.
South County EMS, a regional ambulance company on Routes 5 and 10, and the town’s fire and police departments were cut off from east Deerfield. Farmers who managed land on both sides of the Deerfield River faced an additional 30-minute commute on their tractors. Frontier Regional School District had to reroute all of its buses. Its closure created a huge problem. Thankfully, the state acted quickly, advancing the projected repair schedule from months to weeks, and the bridge was reopened within the month.
Other towns aren’t so lucky.
The Schell Memorial Bridge in Northfield, for example, which spans the Connecticut River, has been closed since 1985. Most recently, state officials declared the General Pierce Bridge, which connects the east side of Montague with Greenfield, to be unsafe for large vehicles. That means, while it’s restricted, fire engines can’t respond to the other town to assist in emergencies; tractor-trailer trucks must detour elsewhere. This week, state officials closed the bridge completely for repairs Thursday and narrowed it to one lane today. Next week, the bridge will only have one travel lane from Tuesday to Friday.
These are not exclusive cases.
Of more than 7,500 bridges across the state, about 8 percent are listed by the state Department of Transportation as structurally “deficient” — roughly 40 are listed as closed, about 150 are weight restricted, the remainder are still open for travel despite their disrepair. In Franklin County and Athol, those deficiency percentages are about double. There are 491 bridges across the region, with 14 percent of them listed as deficient — 11 are closed altogether and nearly 70 are weight restricted, according to raw data from the transportation department’s Bridge Inspection Management System.
Our bridges are crumbling faster than state allotted resources can keep up.
But while many bridges will undoubtedly continue to be structurally deficient for the foreseeable future, progress is being made. Notably, the Municipal Small Bridges Program provides municipalities with up to $500,000 for bridge repair each year. County-wide, 20 bridges worth $80 million are currently in the state’s repair or replacement pipeline. Among these projects, a number are expected to be completed within the next two years, including the bridge on Nash’s Mill Road, which has been closed since last fall, and a 65 year-old bridge that connects Buckland and Charlemont over the Deerfield River.
It’s a good start.
As a primarily rural community, many of our towns are built on or around rivers — Montague, Shelburne, Buckland, Conway, and Greenfield, to name a few. When a bridge goes out in Franklin County, it impacts many facets of life — commerce, public safety, community. For example, while the White Bridge in Montague was closed a few years ago for long-overdue repairs, one of three access points to Greenfield and Interstate 91 was eliminated. Bridges affect everything. For this reason, we hope the state will bolster its efforts to repair our bridges.
They drive our commerce, keep us safe, and connect us to community.