GUILDERLAND — “Who would have thought, seven years ago, that we still wouldn’t have anything done?” said Bill Miller, who lives at 4384 Weaver Road.

He was referring to the closed bridge at the end of his street, which formerly brought cars out to Route 146 further east, near the Appel Inn. Weaver is an L-shaped road that opens onto Route 146 at Hawes Road and again at Osborn Road.

The bridge over the Black Creek has been closed, he says, since 2009. The only entrance or exit to the road, which services almost 20 houses, is now at the western end.

The intersection with Hawes Road at Route 146 sits at what Miller calls “the blind crest of a hill.”

Fairview Cemetery sits above Hawes Road, and “ice runs down out of the cemetery, creating an icy situation” on that part of Route 146, Miller said.

Miller said he goes to work early in the morning at the State Department of Transportation, and that, when it’s icy, he “slides clear across 146.”

The bridge is owned by the county, while the approaches to it are owned by the town.

Miller has spoken several times, he said, to William Anslow, a civil engineer with the Albany County Department of Public Works, Highway Engineering Division, but “it never goes anywhere.”

Anslow said that the county is leaning toward building a bypass road from Route 146 to the other end of Weaver Road, rather than trying to repair the bridge. He said that he is “trying to meet” with the new Town of Guilderland Supervisor, Peter Barber, as well as with Highway Superintendent Steve Oliver, to “make sure Guilderland is on board.”

Anslow said that the Department of Public Works believes it would be cheaper to build a new road than to replace the bridge. But he also said that repairs to the bridge would need to be federally funded, while building a new road would be paid for by the county and town together.

Asked whether the county’s portion of a federally funded project would still be more costly than building a new road, Anslow said that building a new bridge would probably be “close to a million bucks,” 80 percent of which would be federally funded, with 20 percent paid by the county at no charge to the town.

But building a new road, he says, is a more “positive” approach. “We would get a bridge taken off the system, and a new road would provide a better access point to the state highway.” A bridge project, he continued, would involve hiring a project manager and would take three to four years to make the appropriate applications, secure funding, and get started.

“With the road,” though, he said, “we could engineer the project in-house.”

A new road, Anslow said, would probably involve buying a 50-foot right-of-way from a property owner or owners between Route 146 and Weaver Road. It could be along the side of an existing property, he said, if the property owners preferred, or down the middle, which would allow that owner to build houses on either side of the new road.

The one on Weaver Road is the only closed county bridge in Guilderland, Anslow said. There are two other closed bridges in the town, on West Old State Road and French’s Mill Road, but both are railroad bridges.

“The school bus has to use that intersection,” Miller said. “And what if we ever had a fire on the street?”

In the vernacular of the DOT, where Miller works, he said, “They would call it a ‘nonconforming intersection.’”

Maybe Weaver Road should be closed at the top, he said, and just have Hawes Road come out there, Miller said. “I would call it a majorly nonconforming intersection.”

Barber told The Enterprise that the first thing that needs to happen is that highway superintendent Oliver would need to OK the idea first, “and then it would come to me.” He said that he would probably call Oliver first, and Anslow later.