Obsolete bridge

Last Friday, I received a news bulletin about the condition of bridge structures in the local area that were either obsolete, or structurally deficient, by engineering standards of the Florida Department of Transportation. I clicked on the link on this bulletin for the list of additional Florida roads in our area. To my surprise, Hernando County has one obsolete bridge that received no coverage in this news report. The bridge in question listed the location as being 0.5 miles east of SR 700 (Ponce de Leon Blvd./SR98), with the site of Brooksville - Hernando CSX R/R. If you are not familiar with Brooksville, the bridge is over the CSX train tracks on Broad Street, just north of the old Register Chevrolet which is now the Sun Trust office complex.

Under state inspection guidelines for bridges, a functionally obsolete bridge has older design features and, while it is not unsafe for all vehicles, it cannot safely accommodate current traffic volumes and vehicle sizes and weights. Not to cry wolf about this bridge but wouldn't it be prudent for the engineers from Hernando County and the city of Brooksville to put pressure on the Florida Department of Transportion to limit heavy truck traffic on this "obsolete" rated bridge until the structure is updated to conform to safe state guidelines? Maybe with some pressure from county and city officials, the majority of thru truck traffic could be routed to the SR50 truck route, leaving only local traffic to use this obsolete bridge. This could be the answer the "city father (& mothers)" have been searching for for years which would be to eliminate the heavy thru truck traffic in the city of Brooksville.