Waiting for the city’s next move on Gurley bridge

In the next few months, the Gillette City Council will hopefully decide how it wants to move forward with replacing the Gurley overpass.

When voters soundly rejected the ballot initiative that would have funded the replacement of that bridge, the city had to go back to square one, and the issue had not come up in public meetings very much.

But this week, the city council got the conversation going again, listening to three options, ranging from as cheap as $6 million to as much as $40 million. They’ll be looking for an expert consultant to do a study and recommend the best way forward.

Councilmen Nathan McLeland and Jim West made the observation that the public typically doesn’t get involved until things are too far along in the process.

While community engagement is good, too often it comes near the end. But it wouldn’t hurt the city to be a little more open about the process this time around.

There is, and will be, misinformation surrounding the bridge. For example, there was a rumor going around that the city decided to name the bridge after the late Mike Enzi after the vote failed in order to gain more public support. This is a straight up lie. I reported on that name three years ago. But people will believe what they want to hear, I guess.

You have to fight misinformation with information. The city should bombard people with information as it moves ahead in this process, in the hopes that the taxpayers will trust the city over a random person on Facebook.

So how is the city going to pay for this bridge? It’s planning to go after outside funding, but who knows what grants will be available in the next several years as the current administration cuts and slashes budgets?

The city will have to cut back spending in other areas. What are the taxpayers of Gillette willing to sacrifice in order for the bridge to get built? I hope they let the city council know.

Now, with all the talk about pathways from a couple of weeks ago, it reminded me that it would be nice for pedestrians and cyclists to be able to use the Gurley bridge.

This has been an issue with the overpass for as long as it’s been around, as longtime Gillette residents would tell you. If you don’t have a car and need to cross the railroad while the trains are coming through, you’d better be prepared to get in a couple thousand extra steps.

Now, does making the Gurley overpass walkable mean that it will become one of those woke bridges that you’d see in a 15-minute city in California? If you open the overpass up to pedestrian and cyclist access, that means there’s less room for the cars and big trucks, right?

Depending on who you ask, this is a slippery slope.

Just like the Gurley overpass in the winter.