There are all sorts of hackneyed references you could fall prey to.
The current county projects will provide bridges over troubled waters, or they will address the Bridges of Barton County, or you could drop all that and just recognize the importance of us investing in the local infrastructure.
Barton County is doing, with the help of state officials, what needs to be done all around the nation.
Back in the 1940s, for example, the government put money into the development of a series of WPA project stone bridges in northeastern Barton County.
Since then there has been a lot of traffic over those bridges — probably a lot more traffic over them than water under them, to reference another hackneyism.
And the investment that is being put into the pin and hanger bridges that caused problems in the recent past when they had to be closed down during busy farming times, just show how vital our rural bridges are.
The county officials who continue to push for the improvement of our bridges specifically and our roads in general, are helping to insure that commerce will continue throughout this county.
It may be a quiet economy for many of us, especially if our work doesn’t take us into the county much, but there is a fortunate to be tended and harvested in this county and the agricultural economy continues to be the backbone of this part of the state.
Those bridges are vital to keeping that economy healthy.
Investing in them is investing in the future of this region, and it needs to continue — and will, thanks to insightful planning at the county level.
— Chuck Smith