According to the “Billerica Minuteman“, the Whipple Road Bridge, which sits on the Wilmington side of the Billerica-Wilmington line, will be out of service for at least several more months before repairs are attempted. The bridge was closed after the severe flooding that occurred in the mid Spring. The concrete underlayment of the bride has been severely eroded and poses a danger to commuters who travel that section of Whipple Road.

This, naturally, has caused some commuter problem for those who travel Whipple Road, Brown Street, or Nicholas Street to get to South Street directly. Instead, they are forced to travel Route 129 (Salem Rd in Billerica and Shawsheen Ave. in Wilmington) to Lake Street to get access to South Street just on the other side of the Whipple Road Bridge.

This dumps more traffic onto an already overly fed route 129 making rush hour through the Billerica and Wilmington stretch down to the junction of Shawsheen Avenue, Lake Street and Hopkins Street a bit heavier and slightly slower to navigate than usual. Some see that as a great inconvenience, but when one considers that travel is by automobile and not horseback, how much of an inconvenience can there be? Is adding 5 minutes of travel time, or less, really a great strain?

It must be for some. Since, the announcement that bridge repairs will be held in abeyance until a decision regarding FEMA flood funds are going to be available and actually in hand, some people have apparently lost their minds. Some are upset that Wilmington is acting like a nervous groom waiting for the bride to show up before opting to test the connection between brain and legs. Others, in communities around Wilmington, are upset because federal funds are being relied up and see that as another burden on all taxpayers, instead of just those within the town of Wilmington.

I have a couple of questions to those folks:

1. Why is the slight inconvenience of a minor detour so upsetting and inconvenient?
2. After all of the Federal dollars spent on floods in the plains areas and the Midwest, why is it inappropriate for Wilmington to wait for a determination of qualification of funding that will absolutely be much lower than that received by the aforementioned areas of the country?
3. Why should Wilmington not wait for federal funds, when each day, locally collected taxes go to the federal highway fund, little of which is ever returned to the Commonwealth.
4. Is it more appropriate for the Commonwealth to spend precious state resources to assist in fixing the bridge? Or, should the citizens of Wilmington alone pay for the repairs out of their own pockets because taking funds from the feds adds to the national debt?

Public roads, including bridges, have to be funded by tax monies from some sort, simply because they are not privately owned. It is a fact that floods damage bridges; so, should towns not build bridges over flood prone waterways, no matter how infrequently floods occur or how long it takes to go around obstructions? Imagine the inconvenience of that. Should Billerica return funds it received to help rebuild the bridge on Andover Street which connects Billerica to Tewksbury by providing the means of travel over an important rail line? How about the state aid to rebuild the Parker Elementary School? Some of that state grant came from federal education grants as part of a reciprocal agreement to run schools under federal guidelines. Should Billerica turn down those funds and pay for the new school on the backs of townie through increased property and excise taxes?

Money is getting tight and taxes are making what little money people earn even tighter. That is, by no means, an appropriate reason for no government spending at all. Spending should always be prudent and what we seek should always be cost effective.

For instance, how many times has that section of Whipple Road flooded in the past, necessitating follow up repairs? If the flooding is eroding the underlayment, should the repair be designed to replace what existed, or should a bit more be spent now to design a higher, less susceptible bridge, as opposed to one that we know will result in frequent and costly repairs that will ultimately outpace the initial cost of a modified design? We elect officials to consider and make decisions of this sort and rely upon them to consider all possibilities before approving infrastructure projects or other tax money spending.

I’m not disturbed in the slightest that this bridge outage may be extended. I’m not disturbed in the slightest that Wilmington may receive FEMA funds that have been available with astronomically abundant each and every flood season. Money is given out by the government and insurance companies to rebuild flood damaged homes and infrastructure without any consideration to limit future funding, or a concomitant requirement on local areas to modify land management and infrastructural design. Instead, we keep sending FEMA funds to the same regions and land owners over and over again without solving the basic problem of flood prevention or building in known flood areas. What I am upset about is that while Wilmington is awaiting a decision on funding, none of our leaders or theirs are considering cost reductions in the future through an effective plan modification of that local infrastructure while time is available.