STROUDSBURG, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Residents in Monroe County have different opinions when it comes to a bridge that has been closed for over a year now.
Eyewitness News heard their thoughts about the closure and if PennDOT is working to repair it. A bridge connecting Cherry Valley to downtown Stroudsburg has been closed since August 2020 after it was damaged in a storm.
“We’ve lived here 30 years. We’ve never loved it more than the bridge being closed,” Shellie Bransford of Cherry Valley said.
Cherry Valley residents have mixed feelings about the year-long hold-up.
“I wanna have the bridge back,” Jason James of Cherry Valley said.
Bransford says she appreciates how peaceful it’s been without interruptions from traffic.
“I’m hoping that they repair it in such a way to be maintained as a riding, biking, hiking road. The bridge… I’d like to see it become one that can be walked over, that you can ride over,” Bransford said.
Living across the street, James says the bridge causes a major inconvenience and has had his family trapped with only one way out. James was never notified of the closure and says it led to a rough first day of school for his kids.
“The first day we were waiting for the bus, they never showed up. And then when we call them, they said the bridge was out, we won’t be able to get the bus up there, so you’re going to have to bring them to another location to get picked up,” James said.
Eyewitness News decided to drive and time the detour route to see just how much it adds to a resident’s commute into downtown.
Despite a beautiful, yet bumpy ride, the time it took to get from one side of the bridge to the other on Glenbrook Road was a total of 16 minutes and 38 seconds.
The Stroud Township manager Daryl Eppley tells Eyewitness News the road before the bridge is under construction due to a compromised embankment.
Eppley says PennDOT does have a plan for a replacement bridge, but the township has not yet heard of a timeline for repairs.
