Valley News – Upper Valley road construction season has begun 

As anyone who has driven over the Connecticut River on Interstate 89 or tried to get from Thetford to Lyme can tell you, road construction season is upon us.

In the interest of spending less time in traffic, here’s a look at where roads and bridges are under construction in the Upper Valley this summer.

Bridges from the 20th century

In a river valley, the biggest choke points are bridges, and three key ones are under construction this summer.

In addition to the Lyme-Thetford bridge, which is slated to be closed until October 2024, and the I-89 bridges over the Connecticut, which will be under construction through 2025, the Ledyard Bridge linking Hanover and Norwich also is under construction. A $2.8 million state rehabilitation of the bridge includes repaving and improving the expansion joints and deck membrane. It also will replace the raised median with a painted one. The dedicated turn lane onto Tuck Drive will be closed while the work takes place.

“You can tell people that project’s not from us,” Hanover Director of Public Works Peter Kulbacki said with a laugh.

With the Lyme-Thetford bridge closed, the Ledyard Bridge is likely to see more traffic. Traffic leaving Hanover over the bridge occasionally backs up to the Dartmouth Green.

On the I-89 bridges, traffic will shift to new temporary lanes under construction between the two spans, enabling work on the northbound bridge. The bridge work often causes backups, but transportation officials in both states said contractors generally clear out early on holiday weekends to allow for the heavier flow of traffic.

“Our construction bureau tells (contractors) to wrap it up and get out of the way,” Richard Arcand, a spokesman for the New Hampshire DOT, said in a phone interview.

In addition to the Connecticut River bridges, some work remains to be done on the bridges over Route 4 and the Mascoma River at Exit 19, Arcand said.

On the west side of the river, VTrans will begin work on the I-89 southbound bridge over the White River in West Hartford sometime in July. The six-to-eight-week project will entail closing one lane at a time while workers repair expansion joints, Jeremy Salvatori, a project manager at VTrans, said in a phone interview.

Underway right now is work on multiple bridges on Interstate 91 from Fairlee through St. Johnsbury, with traffic down to one lane on most of them. The speed limit is reduced to 55 mph. VTrans says the work is “preventative maintenance.”

Replacement of a railroad bridge on Route 14 in Royalton means the one-way underpass is still only one-way, though now it has traffic lights during construction. The project is due to last into next year, and Route 14 will be closed for up to 21 days in the summer of 2024 when the bridge is replaced and the road is realigned into a two-lane highway. Since the existing bridge is a one-lane bridge, the impact on traffic isn’t too severe, but the true test will be Tunbridge Fair weekend.

And though it’s not exactly a bridge, this list should include a planned culvert replacement on Route 113 at the Thetford-West Fairlee line. The project will close the state highway for 48 hours, on June 24 and 25, to replace the aging metal culvert with a much larger concrete box culvert. Before and after the replacement, the road will be down to one lane while work is taking place.

Hit the pavement

Many paving projects are so small, lasting only a day or two, that the NH DOT doesn’t send out info about them. But the repaving of four miles of Route 11 between Claremont and Newport, one of the busiest roads around, is kind of a big deal. Work starts Monday, Arcand said in a news release, and is expected to take three weeks. Plan for lane closures and budget extra travel time.

Parts of Route 120, from Claremont to Cornish, and of Route 12A are slated for repaving and guardrail work. Much of Route 4A, from Lebanon to Andover, is due to be repaved, as well, from August into early September.

In Hanover, the town will repave Lyme Road from Park Street to the roundabout at Reservoir Road, as well as South Street, Currier Place, Dorrance Place, and Sanborn Road. Town officials still aren’t sure of the start date for both projects, with paving bids having opened in just the past few days.

Also in Hanover, the state plans to repave part of Etna Road in early September.

Lebanon plans to continue its $1.7 million replacement of the 1958 cast iron water main on Miracle Mile, which is expected to wrap up in 2024, with consistent work until then. The roadwork extends about a mile from the Terry Dudley Bridge east on Route 4 to around Buckingham Place.

The construction will mostly be done through two lane alternating traffic, with a single lane restriction in use “as little as possible, and mostly at night,” Lebanon Public Works Director Jay Cairelli said.

The city also will continue its repavement of 1.3 miles of Poverty Lane, a rural road.

The biggest state paving project on the Vermont side of the Upper Valley appears to be the repaving of Route 107 from the intersection of Route 12 in Bethel to the intersection of Route 100 in Stockbridge. This is a shallow repaving designed to extend the life of 10 miles of roadway, big chunks of which were rebuilt after 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene. Route 107 is a surprisingly busy highway, connecting the Upper Valley to Rutland and points west. Expect part of it to be down to one lane.

More funds, fewer workers

It seems reasonable to expect that there will be more construction projects happening this summer, what with federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) pouring into state coffers.

But the funding can’t create construction workers out of thin air, so the number of projects and the amount of money spent is roughly constant, transportation officials said.

“The construction budget is similar to last year, approximately $280 million,” Jeremy Reed, a VTrans construction engineer, said in a written statement. “It is difficult to quantify on an annual basis because projects are funded and some projects are multiyear projects; it’s not a set annual amount. We received a 28% increase in funding with the IIJA.”

“Inflation and labor shortages have driven costs up,” he added. “It’s tough to assign an exact value because there are so many other factors, but certainly a construction project is significantly more expensive today than it was three years ago.”

It is possible to assign numbers to specific materials, though. Bradford, Vt., held off on paving last year, because the cost of asphalt was in the high $80s to low $90s per ton, Phil Page, the town’s longtime road foreman said. The current quoted price was just shy of $80 per ton, and Bradford will pave parts of Goshen and South roads this year, Page said.

In New Hampshire, Arcand said the state generally spends $300 million a year on road projects. There’s another $30 million in the pot this year, a 10% increase. “The IIJA funds were added to the current ten-year plan and will help cover the increases in labor and material costs on current and future projects,” Arcand said.

While both states set dates for road projects, weather can alter the calendar. For updates, look to the New England 511 system at newengland511.org. It sends updates to a user’s phone for a given route. Transportation officials from both states regularly update that system, including information about the location and duration of projects.

Transportation officials in both states urged motorists to slow down, particularly through construction zones.

“We always have too many accidents in work zones,” Arcand said. “Please, take this seriously and slow down.”

Page said the same is true for projects on local roads. There’s been a big influx of new residents who aren’t familiar with small-town roads.

“Speed means something,” he said. “We’ve had close calls” during construction projects. “Pay attention,” he said. “Slow down.”

Valley News staff writers Frances Mize, Patrick Adrian and Alex Hanson contributed to this report.