A common saying for procrastinators everywhere is that “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Well, the bridge is here, it’s possibly irreparably broken, and it’s making life exponentially more frustrating for many thousands of Rhode Islanders every day.

Allow us to join the chorus of voices criticizing RIDOT and state leadership for its inability to provide an accurate estimate on how long this bridge fiasco will take to resolve.

No, this is not a complaint stemming from wanting an accurate answer faster; rather the complete opposite is what we’d like.

Although it may be difficult to provide a simple but noncommittal answer along the lines of “We won’t know exactly how broken this bridge is, or how long it will take to fix, until we do more analysis and inspections,” when throngs of media members and citizens are clamoring for information, doing so would be infinitely less frustrating than making uninformed guesses that become completely useless once more information is learned.

First it was going to take around three months to fix, then four, and now we’re talking about possibly needing to replace the entire structure as more inspections and analysis is being conducted. While the 24/7 news cycle has made people less and less patient when dealing with breaking news stories — always wanting that next update faster and faster — sometimes it is best to not pretend to have all the facts and simply admit what is not known, and to leave the predictive timelines for a later date when all the information is in hand.

As for the continued response to the crisis, we find it simply unbelievable that RIDOT has apparently striven to continue business as usual with other projects throughout the state while one of the most crucial arteries becomes clogged with horrendous traffic from the morning commute until well into the evening hours.

The Washington Bridge repair must be the priority project, perhaps the only non-emergency-related project, being worked on until it is resolved. A state of emergency should be sought to bring federal dollars to assist with the repairs.

As for how this mess began in the first place, there is no one person to blame and no one entity to demonize. Rather, it seems a lackadaisical culture of pushing off maintenance well beyond when it should be conducted, which has bitten us so many times in the past, has simply reared its ugly head in a most dramatic fashion.

If there is to be any good salvaged from this chaos, please let this be a wake up call to end all wakeup calls for state authorities and politicians.