WEST LEBANON – A new bridge on Trues Brook Road opened to traffic on Tuesday.
The City approved a project to widen a section of Trues Brook Road and replace the former bridge over Bloods Brook in April 2024, the Valley News previously reported.
In 2023, a state inspection found a serious deterioration of the bridge’s concrete deck.
The bridge replacement project on Trues Brook Road, a 4-mile road that connects Plainfield Road in West Lebanon to Willow Brook Road in Plainfield, is on schedule to be completed by Nov. 20, City Engineer Rodrick Finley said.
“It’s definitely 98% done,” Finley told the Valley News in a phone interview.
Located near the intersection with Derby Lane, the cost of the entire project is roughly $5.5 million, with around $4.1 million for the new bridge alone, according to Finley.
A federal grant through the Municipally Owned Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or MOBIL, covered 80% of the design costs while the city paid 20%, totaling around $450,000.
MOBIL paid 100% of the construction, which was around $4.9 million.
The former bridge was only 17½-feet wide and did not have shoulders for pedestrians and cyclists. The new bridge has a total width of 32 feet, including two 11-foot vehicle lanes and two 5-foot-wide shoulders.
A temporary bridge was removed by construction crews on Wednesday, the day after the new bridge opened to one-way traffic.
Crews are currently working on completing the paving of the roadway.
“Once one side is cool, we’ll switch the traffic over on that new pavement and pave the other half,” Finley said. “And then once that’s done, we’ll be very close to opening that up to two-way traffic. So probably early November.”
