For almost a year now, I have had to detour around the Shelby County 22 bridge near Shelby Academy. Working at both a store in Calera off-and-on since May 2005 and now here at the Shelby County Reporter, I traveled the 7-mile roundtrip bypass at least five days a week.

Needless to say, I&8217;m glad to see the bridge opening this week. I am also happy the new bridge took less than a year to construct.

I&8217;ve actually seen the finished product: it&8217;s much safer. The state was widened the bridge considerably to handle the 6,000 cars that cross Spring Creek every day.

My one complaint is why has the bridge been standing finished since February?

I realize that it rained a lot this spring, but I don&8217;t understand why it took four months to finish building approaches and other final details.

My guess would be that the subcontractors had until the end of this month to finish the bridge and weren&8217;t in any major hurry to get started despite the bridge being finished months earlier.

It might seem petty to argue over a seven-mile detour, but over the year those miles add up quickly. Someone taking the route to work has gone nearly 2,000 miles out-of-the-way since the construction begin last July.

With gas prices the way they are, that is definitely a big burden to place on people.