(a) Whenever the public convenience justly demands it and the need thereof shall be appropriately signified, as herein provided, then the board of county commissioners must proceed as follows with respect to intercounty bridges across streams serving in whole or in part as a boundary between two counties: After the presentation in the case of a bridge to cost not over One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00), of a petition signed by at least fifty taxpayers of each county; to cost from One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) to Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), by seventy-five taxpaying signers in each county; to cost more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), by one hundred taxpaying signers in each county, to the board of county commissioners, it may within one (1) year proceed to act and construct the bridge if such levy as may be required for this purpose may be made within the constitutional limitation as to tax levies; and such petitions or actions, at whatever stage, shall bind and have equal force with the successors in office to those Commissioners originally receiving it. The cost of the bridge shall be apportioned between the counties upon the basis of their total valuation, unless the boards of county commissioners in the exercise of sound judgment shall agree to apportion it otherwise.
(b) The above proceeding shall not apply in the case of intercounty bridges where the total span is two hundred (200) feet or more, including approaches thereto of timber work or any material other than earth embankment, if there is another bridge of substantially equal size and importance over the same stream within six (6) miles of the proposed location.
Laws 1968, c. 415, § 607, operative July 1, 1968.