BUHLER, Kan. — The Buhler School District is looking over its options for dealing with the closing of the 43rd Avenue bridge over the Union Pacific Railroad. The small wooden span was condemned after significant damage was found during an inspection. The bridge will remain closed until it can be replaced.

USD 313 Superintendent Mike Berblinger commented on the potential traffic headaches caused by the closing. “We’re glad that we’ve got a little heads up time. I just visited briefly with my Transportation Director,” he said. “ Of course we haven’t been using it for bus traffic over this past school year because of the weight limit, but we’re going to look for ways that we can really reduce that traffic a little bit.”

Berblinger says some options for dealing with the traffic could include staggered dismissal times and altering traffic patterns. “We’ll get a plan together and I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, whether we stagger some departures or what,” Berblinger said. “We’ll start to work on that right now since we got that news.”

Berblinger says residents in the area will likely see increased traffic around their neighborhoods as motorist look for a way back to 30th Avenue without traveling south down Lucille Drive.