Discretion was the better part of valor for highway officials recently. Their decision to postpone closing Elm Grove's Monument Bridge until the spring -- the span is used by thousands of vehicles each day as a gateway through the neighborhood on National Road -- was a prudent one that led to a sigh of relief for drivers throughout the Ohio Valley.
Look around Wheeling, and there's a road construction project around many turns. Market Street is the scene of the city's major sewer project, a prerequisite to its multimillion-dollar streetscape project. The Interstate 70 Bridges project has part of that traffic artery completely torn up and detours for that section of interstate already in place. Soon, there will be a detour to that detour thanks to work on one of I-70's off-ramps, and this week drivers on I-470 in Ohio -- the official detour in Ohio for traffic heading east -- are dealing with additional congestion as highways crews in Ohio work on that thoroughfare.
It's clear there's more than enough gridlock and detours right now that adding another would have been too much.
Luckily, drivers will have some additional time to use that bridge, and other road projects might advance enough in the meantime to create less of a headache when Monument Bridge does close.
Make no mistake, the bridge is in need of a facelift. It is the oldest such span in West Virginia and it's necessary that it stay drivable, as it carries the National Road over Big Wheeling Creek.
The proper and prudent move was to allow drivers to continue using it for the time being. Drivers should be thankful that highways officials made the right call.