It’s going to be a bit harder to get to Contoocook Creamery for the next six weeks, not to mention the Hopkinton transfer station, as repairs are made to a well-used bridge over the Contoocook River.
Work on Tyler Bridge, which carries Penacook Road over the Contoocook River next to Bohanan Farm. is slated to begin Oct. 4 and wind up by Nov. 29 at the latest.
“Right now there’s a metal plate over one of the joints – it’s a real bump when you go over it. That plate is going to be replaced,” said Hopkinton Town Administrator Neal Cass. Aside from safety issues, he said, the plate “makes it pretty impossible to plow in the winter.”
Cass said he hoped it would be done earlier than scheduled. “It’s such an important connection.”
The most likely detour for drivers seeking to cross the river involves going south and through the center of Hopkinton on Rt. 103, next to the covered bridge.
The work will be paid for entirely by the town, with a $330,000 budget.
“It was scheduled to be done this year with even more work, but the bids came in way above what we had budgeted so the project was scaled back,” Cass said. Difficulty scheduling contractors has also delayed it.
The work is being done by E.D. Swett of Concord, with Hoyle Tanner and Associates as engineers.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
