DILLER - Finally, some signs of progress on a stretch of road in Southeast Nebraska that's long been in need of repair.

Road closure and detour signs have been erected, and the initial foundation has been removed. Construction is well underway on a bridge on the PWF Road that connects Fairbury to Pawnee and Wymore. 

"Today, they're staging signs to put out there," Jefferson County assistant highway supervisor Terry Blas said at a meeting of the Jefferson County commissioners on December 2. "I'm going to get my detour signs put up [after that] if I can. And they want to close it from there."

After a few weeks of planning, construction formally began at the start of December. The Jefferson County highway department contracted with JJK Construction out of Ceresco to execute the project. They pledged to fully install a new bridge within 110 working days.

This bridge was identified as in pressing need of repairs 12 months ago. And now construction is underway on this bridge just outside of Diller, close to the border of Jefferson and Gage Counties.

Elected officials in Jefferson County believe this is just the first phase in a prelude towards progress on an eventual widescale renovation of the eastern half of the PWF Road as a whole.

"We are well on well on track with construction on the PWF bridge," Jefferson County commissioner Mark Schoenrock said in a board meeting on December 16. "I just had a program management review meeting with NDOT for our overall PWF Road, and we are on track for bid letting for summer of 2026 for the whole project."

Roughly half of the cost of the bridge project is being funded through the Nebraska Department of Transportation's County Bridge Match Program. It has an estimated completion date around March, after which the county will begin soliciting offers to repair and resurface much of the rest of the eastern half of the PWF Road - the county was able to acquire approval to parse the projects out and begin work on the bridge separate from and prior to the rest of the road. Federal funding will cover much of the cost of that project, and the remainder of the cost will be covered via a county bond spread out over part of the next half dozen years.