Residents who normally take a quick bypass between South Main Street and Huntingtown Road in Botsford will need to plan for an extra few minutes of travel into the winter months.

Bridge work at Meadow Brook Road will close the bridge to through traffic from July 5 through November. Detour signs will be posted; and traffic that normally travels that route will be detoured to Cold Spring Road.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley told The Newtown Bee on July 1 that the project will necessitate a full-time closure of the bridge during the entire period of work. He said that the detour to Cold Spring Road “will not be a problem” during the summer months but may cause some difficulties once school is back in session, due to bus routes.

Director of Emergency Communications Maureen Will said that this closure “is not the first rodeo with that section of road.”

“We have a plan in place, alternate routes are in place,” said Will. “No one will have less or reduced service [from Newtown’s emergency services], trust me.”

Hurley said that the new bridge will be a clear span, hydraulic bridge, which is what the Army Corps of Engineers is calling for on bridge construction now. The old bridge used a box culvert to allow water to pass underneath the bridge, but box culverts are prone to obstruction. The new bridge plans call for the free flow of water underneath the bridge.

Additionally, the bridge will be wider and “the geometry will be safer,” said Hurley. “Before it was two narrow and the abutments would sometimes be hit by traffic.”

The project is not eligible for state or federal grants, and Hurley said the town was “not successful” in getting any other grants. The project will be paid for from the town’s Bridge Replacement Fund, and will cost approximately $1,125,000.

There had been $800,000 in the fund, and the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance approved a $400,000 appropriation to the line item to pay for this bridge work; the Legislative Council was expected to approve the amount at a July 6 meeting. The appropriation was called for and authorized in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan.

Nagy Brothers, a Monroe company, is doing the bridge work. One of the owners of the company lives in Newtown near the bridge, said Hurley.

“His commute to work won’t be very long,” said Hurley.

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.