Any self-respecting legislator and public servant ought to be haunted by the cry of Ms Dulcy Bromfield published in today’s edition of this newspaper.

Ms Bromfield, who lives at Cowick Park in Manchester, is one of many residents of that and other communities who depend on the Troy bridge which is yet to be repaired after it collapsed a year ago.

“We cannot live in this condition, it is like nobody cares about us,” Ms Bromfield is quoted in today’s lead story.

Ms Bromfield is absolutely correct, as no Jamaican should be put through the torture that she and her neighbours have been subjected to for the past year.

As our report points out, some 2,000 Jamaicans rely on the bridge to get from their communities to school, work, or to go about their general business.

Now, they are hearing from Mr Everald Warmington, the Government minister with responsibility for works, that a replacement bridge may take two budget cycles to be erected. That’s another two years.

According to Mr Warmington, engineers are still working on a design for the replacement bridge. This is a year after the residents have had to make do without it.

The upshot is that without this vital infrastructure these Jamaican citizens are now forced to travel for up to two hours and spend at least $1,100 in transportation costs to get to their destinations.

Some, who are unable to afford that cost have resorted to dangerous use of a zipline transporting them in market carts across the broken bridge and hope that they don’t plunge into the river below which, in recent weeks, has been in spate because of heavy rain.

With the new academic year set to open tomorrow, the fear of getting children to school safely has now increased, especially for Ms Bromfield, whose two sons attend Troy High School, and Ms Hazeline Williams who is unable to forget that her 14-year-old grandson almost drowned while crossing the river on his way home from school in June.

Both women are facing a dilemma as it relates to transportation costs.

In Ms Bromfield’s case, getting her sons to school using the alternative route will run her $20,000 per week. She can’t afford that, she told us.

Ms Williams, likewise, has told us that the 15-mile alternative route through Christiana for her grandson is not an option due to the high cost.

We can’t fathom how these families and others will fare, starting tomorrow.

Having people wait another two years to have their lives return to some semblance of normalcy is not only poor governance, it speaks to a lack of regard and respect for citizens.

Surely, their political representatives and people in authority who wield influence can do much better than this.