Bridges of Lebanon

     Tobacco Road Bridge

       In the Norwich Bulletin article, that was just published and posted on this blog, it was mentioned by the First Selectmen that were were several bridges that were in need of repair in addition to the one on Tobacco Street. Research conducted by myself indicates that here are least two additional bridges that are also in need of immediate repair and there is no funding in the future to repair these bridges. The first is the bridge on Waterman Road over the Pease Brook and the second is the McGrath Lane bridge over the Yantic River.
In addition, the bridge over Bartlett Brook on Taylor Bridge Road is in imminent need of repair and/or replacement.

Bridge on Waterman Road

    The concern of the towns residents should be what is going to happen with the bridges that have not been funded. The Waterman Road bridge should be of particular concern to the town since that is one the main routes to the south end of the town. If I lived on either McGrath Lane or Taylor Bridge Road then I would be very concerned that those bridges could be out of service either permanently or for an extended period of time. It should be abundantly clear to everyone that there is some chance that the town could have to foot the bill for at least several of these bridges on our own. We have to ask ourselves whether we have spent enough money on maintaining our infrastructure in this town and whether it has come back and hurt us now. Due to the economic conditions we have put $80,000 dollars aside for the towns road and bridge repairs. Last year we put $150,000 dollars aside for these repairs.As we move forward we have to ask ourselves whether this is enough because deferring maintainence never is a good idea.

    In addition it should be noted that at the Town Meeting that we are going to spending our whole road and bridge maintenance budget for this fiscal year on this project. It had been portrayed in the Norwich Bulletin article that we are going to be not spending any town monies on this project but that is untrue. That is why its my opinion that we need to dedicate more money to our annual Road and Bridge budget.