No government official wants to see children walking home from school on a well-traveled, narrow bridge with no sidewalk.
But local leaders have witnessed it and worried for years about the Old Reliance Road bridge that passes over Earl Rudder Freeway in Bryan.
It was such a troubling issue that the Bryan-College Station Chamber of Commerce ranked expanding the bridge as its top transportation priority for about a decade. And on Monday the Texas Department of Transportation finally broke ground on a $4.2 million project to do so.
The new bridge will have four lanes and a sidewalk. It's expected to be completed in the fall.
"It took us perhaps longer than we wanted," said U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, who said he worked for years to secure funding for the project.
The project eventually was financed by the federal stimulus package that passed through Congress in February 2009. The idea of the funding was to help create jobs. Officials said Monday that it would, but that safety was the top issue.
"The reason I am so excited is we are going to save somebody's life and probably the life of a high school or middle school student," Edwards said. "You can't put a dollar value on saving one child from a serious injury or death."
The bridge is within yards of the border for both Earl Rudder High School and Sam Rayburn Middle School campuses. It's the site of regular traffic jams before and after school and has two narrow lanes with no shoulder or sidewalk. Its edges are lined by guardrails that offer little protection to pedestrians. Still, students use it to walk to and from home and school.
At a groundbreaking ceremony for the project on Monday, about 20 government officials passed over the bridge on a bus and expressed dismay over the hazardous situation those students face.
Finding funding for the project was difficult, officials said. They said the need for the bridge became glaring when the Bryan Independent School District purchased land to build Rudder High and anticipated an influx of drivers -- especially young ones who just received their licenses.
However, many transportation projects are funded by studies of the number of cars that drive through the area in question. Because the school hadn't been built, the studies suggested that the expansion wasn't necessary, officials said.
Rudder High opened in 2008 with ninth- and 10th-grade students and plans to add a freshman class each year until the campus is full.
"This spring is when those original kids start driving" -- increasing the need for safe roads in the area, said Mike Cargill, superintendent of Bryan schools.
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