Residents of the Marystown are banding together to try to find some interim solutions after one of the main thoroughfares through the town was shut down.

The Canning bridge was shut down by the Department of Transportation last week after failing an inspection. That means residents now have to make a 12 km drive on the Burin Peninsula highway to get from one side of town to the other.

A meeting was held in the town last night for residents to air their concerns.

PC MHA for the area, Jeff Dwyer, says between 100 and 150 people attended the meeting, and you could see the “genuine concern” on their faces.

Dwyer says there was a representative of Grace Sparkes House, which offers shelter to women and children fleeing violence, at the meeting. He says many of the people they help avail of services on the north side of town, and now that $14 cab ride is a $40 cab ride—which is challenging when they are already struggling.

Dwyer says he doesn’t want to play the blame game in terms of how the bridge, which was built in the 1950s, got to this point.

“What’s done is done,” says Dwyer, and now they all have to work together to get the bridge replaced as quickly as possible.