If you don’t live in East Concord or happen to be an employee of the Monitor, the fact that the Sewalls Falls bridge was closed for what seemed like an eternity probably hasn’t affected your day-to-day life all that much.
Inconvenient at times? We’re sure it has been, but not to the extent where the options on which way you can leave your job – one that requires you to travel all over the city – had been cut in half.
So now that the bridge is officially opened for everyone, getting certain places has become a lot easier. And it’s a really nice bridge – especially if you compare it to the old clunker it replaced.
We even got a nice sneak peek at the bridge, being the first ones to go over it other than the workers. We like to think it was for all our troubles over the previous two years, but really they had to fix the train tracks in the road, which meant we could now only go right out of the driveway.
“That was the soft opening,” said city engineer Ed Roberge.
That’s all in the past now that we can once again get over the Merrimack – and get to Mountain Road. How are we going to choose?
But we understand, it needed to be replaced, and bad.
It was originally built in 1915 and had some work done in the 1930s due to flooding. In 1994, it appeared on a list of projects for the N.H. DOT, and over the years it kept getting pushed back. It had been shut down before, was scheduled to be redone in 2007 and even had weight limitations.
The bridge was definitely in desperate need of replacement, and it didn’t exactly bring you warm and fuzzy feelings when you’d drive over it.
The project was handed over to the city in 2010 and many different options were looked at. Repairing it would be more money than replacing, and would include more costs in the years to come.
“It was too old and would be too costly,” Roberge said. “So not only was it cheaper, but from a life cycle perspective, it’s tens of millions cheaper.”
So that’s why there’s a nice new bridge to drive over. It’s hard to believe it was shut down on Dec. 1, 2014, and that we spent almost a year watching it just sit there and then another year-plus watching the old one be dismantled and the new one put up.
Everything pretty much stayed according to plan and the date for reopening was only 10 days past the original projection.
“The weather for the last year and a half has been great,” Roberge said. “We hit just about everything on target, so from a structural standpoint and execution standpoint, it went well.”
The price tag will be just south of $12 million, and if you haven’t checked it out, it’s worth the trip.
Gone are the rusted trusses and having to wait for others to cross from the other side before you could drive over it.
“Two cars can go on it without panicking over who should go first,” Roberge said.
The new bridge is 32 feet curb to curb, compared to 18 for the old one. There are 11 foot travel lanes with 5 feet on each side for bike travel. And a new addition is the 5 ½ foot side walk on the south side of the bridge, which includes a few bumpouts meant for people to walk and enjoy the sights of the river.
“You really couldn’t walk it, and it was hard to drive,” Roberge said. “Now everyone feels like they have enough space.”
It’s safe to say that this bridge will last at least the next 50 years, but it’s optimistic to think it will last much longer.
The new bridge is also 15 feet higher and the approach was even softened from the Monitor side of things.
Some work is continuing in Heritage Park in the Sewalls Falls Recreation Area, where several pieces of the old bridge will be used.
So if you haven’t made the trip, it’s worth the drive. Just to say you went over it.
