Not in decades, and perhaps never like this before, has the state received such a sudden, dire reminder of the importance of our local infrastructure, and keeping up with the difficult process of maintaining it.

We have been complimentary of RIDOT’s efforts to renew, repair, and rebuild our most laggard roads and bridges throughout the past few years, and it is certainly no simple or straightforward endeavor, but the emergency closing of the Washington Bridge on Monday evening provided a stark and drastic reminder of how previous generations of Rhode Island leaders failed in their charged duties to ensure the structures we depend on every single day are safe, and up to standards.

Certainly, it is worth pointing out that RIDOT identified the potentially disastrous flaw in the bridge and shut it down before anybody was hurt. But this is more of a lucky blessing brought on by nothing more than good fortune, as the physical state of the portion of bridge in question could have reasonably failed at any point in the past months before being spotted. The rapidity with which the bridge was shut down, clearly with no real plan about what to do with the resulting delays it would cause, is clear evidence of that.

In the coming days and weeks, Rhode Island’s leaders will be tested in their ability to make quick decisions and take decisive action to prevent unnecessary loss of life from people on the East Bay and Aquidneck Island who rely on being able to access the hospitals west of the Washington Bridge. The DOT director said on a radio program Tuesday morning that a special emergency route could be opened (potentially as soon as you are reading this column) on a supposedly safe portion of the bridge to allow emergency vehicles to bypass the detour that gridlocked all of East Providence and the surrounding area and turned a 20-minute commute into a two-hour one. We hope that will prove to be true.

But for the regular commuter going from Cranston to Bristol, or Warwick to Warren, or Coventry to East Providence, this infrastructural crisis will have a significant impact on their day-to-day life in the form of unsustainable traffic delays and time wasted. Businesses will likely require financial assistance similar to what we experienced during Covid to weather the storm this crisis will have on their bottom lines in the midst of the busiest shopping season of the year. Employers will have to regain muscle memory on allowing for remote work, as it may not physically be feasible for workers to get into an office remotely on time for the foreseeable future, unless the state is able to work on creating alternate travel routes that actually make a marked difference in the vehicular congestion.

The coming weeks and months will showcase whether our current leaders are up to the task of responding to a legitimate crisis, one that should once and for all end any bickering the public has about ponying up the required money to maintain the roads and bridges that we depend on for our lives, and livelihoods.