Jefferson County has received a grant for half a million dollars from the Nebraska Department of Transportation to repair an ailing bridge on an important road.

This bridge spans a small stretch of the PWF Road that connects Fairbury with Pawnee and Wymore. It's located on the eastern edge of the county, near the Gage County line, crossing over a tributary to the Big Indian Reservoir.

Built in 1935, many different aspects of the bridge have been judged to be in poor condition, which poses dangers to the cars, trucks and buses that frequent this part of the county. It's currently 50 feet long, and the new proposed structure would be 80 feet long and more in keeping with modern bridge standards.

This grant of 500 thousand dollars from the NDOT would cover more than half the cost, estimated at $955,000, to replace this aging structure.

"This is 500 thousand dollars that we will not have to come to Jefferson County taxpayers for to do that bridge. It's nearly a million dollar bridge, and we're going to basically get half of it paid for," said Jefferson County Commissioner Mark Schoenrock. "We worked really hard to put together this package, we had a lot of smart people on the team putting it together. It's a very competitive process... for us to be selected as one of those, it really is a great day for our county."

Schoenrock says programs like this make progress possible for local governments, who would otherwise have to fundraise for needed fixes like this by pulling money from other places in the budget, or raising taxes.

"This program a huge plus for Nebraska county governments, because it permits us to replace aging infrastructure and it becomes much more possible if you get grants and money like this, compared to having to come up with the money out of your local budget," he said.

Gage County also received a total of 500 thousand dollars from the NDOT to help repair two bridges - that will cover half of the cost of those operations as well. In total, the NDOT awarded $4 million to 11 total counties to help offset the costs of 15 bridge projects, and Jefferson and Gage Counties combined to receive $1 million of that money, a significant sum. 

"Granted, you get further west and north and there aren't as many bridges [as there are in Southeast Nebraska], but if you don't make the effort to put in for this money, you aren't going to get it, either," assistant highway supervisor Terry Blas said. "We've been really fortunate with this Bridge Match Program."

For more information on the counties' proposals and the bridges that will eventually be replaced, read our other stories in this series from our coverage on News Channel Nebraska.