When the Meadowbrook Bridge on County Highway 4 in the village of Gilbertsville closed at the beginning of September, many residents were surprised at the abruptness of the closure and frustrated at the disruption to traffic, but they were even more taken aback by the proposed construction timeline of two years.
Members of the Village Improvement Society of Gilbertsville and Gilbertsville Mayor Aidan Woishnis spoke at the Otsego County Board of Representatives meeting Wednesday, Oct. 1, expressing their concerns about impacts to public safety, school bus routes and local business.
They also urged county officials to move up the timeline. The group plans to bring the issue before the county Public Works Committee at its upcoming meeting Thursday, Oct. 16.
“We got a notice of it about an hour before they actually put the signs up and determined closure,” Woishnis said. “The county also only got about an hour’s notice, roughly that the closure was happening, but it was very limited. And then signs went up, and all of a sudden, another bridge was closed.”
There are two other closed bridges in Gilbertsville, Green Street Bridge and Mill Street Bridge — although those are village owned and not a primary route like Meadowbrook Bridge, he said.
“We’re working on getting those replaced,” he said, “but because they’re less necessary bridges and they cost very, very high amounts of money to replace, they’re not as high on the priority list.”
The village is exploring grants, but faces budget and staff limitations.
Woishnis said that the bridge closure adds about five minutes to the time of emergency response runs.
“Five minutes may not seem like much, but in emergency medicine it’s associated with more than a 50% drop in survival odds for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest,” he said in his statement to the board.
The Meadowbrook Bridge was declared unsafe after a state Department of Transportation inspection that “revealed significant structural deterioration that merited the bridge’s closure,” NYSDOT spokesperson Daniel Scharfenberger said Thursday via email. Scharfenberger did not say when the state inspection took place.
County officials said that flood damage during the spring season, compounded by flooding in past years, contributed to the decision to close the bridge.
County board member Jim Powers, whose district includes Butternuts and Gilbertsville, said Wednesday he has heard from his constituents about the bridge closure.
“Everyone’s under the financial restraints, and all the road damage that was done by the flood in the spring, we’re just getting caught up,” Powers said. “The problem is, you can cobb it together for $80,000 to $100,000 now and reopen it, or should you try and fix it, a real fix. That’s where the question is going to be, and that’s where we’re going to look at very closely.”
County board member Keith McCarty, chair of the county Public Works Committee, described Meadowbrook Bridge as “an old bridge, and it’s kind of rusted out” from flood damage.
“It didn’t pass state DOT (inspection), so we had to close it,” he said.
NYSDOT plans to address a fourth Gilbertsville bridge next summer, located on State Route 51 over Dunderberg Creek, which could further isolate the business and services, including the post office and library, on Commercial Street, which lies between the Meadowbrook and State Route 51 bridges.
“NYSDOT is progressing a project to rehabilitate the State Route 51 bridge over Dunderberg Creek to enhance safety and extend the lifespan of the structure,” Scharfenberger said. “Work is expected to begin in 2026 and NYSDOT will keep the community apprised as the project moves forward.”
Woishnis said that the State Route 51 bridge likely won’t be a total closure, but just reduce traffic to one lane, which could bottleneck a lot of the traffic in and out of the village.
Cole Covington, co-owner of Five Kids Bakehouse in Gilbertsville, said Wednesday that first-time customers who are unfamiliar with the area often get lost, making the bridge closure more challenging.
“People hear about us through word of mouth, and they’re trusting their friends enough to drive half an hour, 45 minutes or an hour, to come to this bakery, and then a bridge is closed,” he said.
As a business that relies on daily traffic, the disruption impacts not only customers, but the bakery’s ability to anticipate inventory needs and reduce waste.
The lack of clear communication about the closure also has exacerbated the issue, he said.
“Nobody was informed,” he said. “All of a sudden, it’s closed. It was just through people in town that we were told that it would be 2027 before something happened.”