The new bridge on Windle Community Road in Overton County is now open.
The bridge first closed last July as T-DOT expressed concern about the bridge’s age and condition. Overton County Highway Superintendent Tim Kennedy said though the project took several months to complete the project did not have any hiccups.
“The old bridge was torn down, and a new bridge was constructed, and so you know, there was a little grading work, but mostly it was just a new concrete single-span bridge across the river,” Kennedy said. “I mean, it’s what they call it is a 100-year bridge, so hopefully it will be.”
Kennedy said people will notice that the bridge is wider and higher than the previous bridge. With many people having to take alternate routes for several months, Kennedy said getting the bridge back open is a big win for the Windle Community.
“We see people every day just jumping up and down because it’s opened,” Kennedy said. “It put people going out of their way a lot a long way around, several people, several hundred people, so it’s good for the community that it is opened. The school buses the 911 service, when they get a call somewhere, every time they got a call, they had to figure that into it is how do we get ot it now, how do we get to that address. Now, they don’t have to worry about that, they can go straight across the bridge and get to it.”
Kennedy said it feels good to have the bridge open. Kennedy said with the bridge being open, it will help the other roads that had to handle increased traffic.
“It takes stress off of other roads now, that we were seeing a lot more traffic on, a lot more, you know, big trucks, dump trucks, concrete trucks,” Kennedy said. “You know, it concentrated it down to where they were using one or two single roads instead of spreading it out, so they were taking a pretty good beating just from dump trucks and concrete trucks.”
Kennedy said the bridge has been open for a couple of weeks now, but the county is still closing out the project with T-DOT.
Kennedy said paperwork is all that is left and believes it will be fully completed by July 1.
