Good News/Bad News: Bridge Construction Approved

The good news: the town got a deal on the contract to replace the bridge over the Five Mile River on Old Norwalk Road. The bad news: traffic over the bridge will be restricted to one lane with alternating eastbound and westbound flows during the construction, which is slated to start in March and last 10 months. 

The Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance gave the go ahead Tuesday for the project. New England Road, Inc. got the $935,647 contract to do the work, which town engineers originally estimated would cost about $1.45 million. 

"We expected to get it at $1.2 million maybe; to get it under a million, that was a surprise," Public Works Director Michael Pastore said of the low bid. "Their bid seems to be in order. I think they're just hungry," he told the Board of Finance. 

The bridge, built after the hurricane of 1957, is hungry for attention. It's starting to deteriorate from decades of wear and salt treatments. Pastore says the wires threaded through the concrete beams are now exposed and rusting, threatening the integrity of the structure. The state Department of Transportation usually inspects bridges on a two-year cycle, but given its condition, the DOT has now taken to inspecting the Old Norwalk Road bridge every six months. 

The contractors will be replacing the old concrete beams with steel beams and a concrete slab. Pastore says the new construction will be easier to maintain, "if the steel would start to rust, you can scrape it off and paint it." The new bridge should last another 50 years and be an aesthetic improvement— the concrete sides of the new bridge will be finished to look like stone, matching the stone walls on either side. 

The bridge rehaul will be one of three construction projects in the area in the coming months—at the same time the New Canaan Community Nursery School will be renovating its building in Kiwanis Park and a portion of Old Norwalk Road will be repaved.

"We could be looking at an absolute quagmire on one of the busiest cut through roads in our town," said Selectman Rob Mallozzi Tuesday. 

But Pastore noted that the nursery school project will be off the road, and reassured the Board of Selectmen that the contractors have agreed to work with Public Works to coordinate all the construction. He also speculated that once the bridge work is underway people who don't have to travel on Old Norwalk Road won't.