Replacement of span connecting Milton and Lebanon could start next year

Personnel from the NH DOT's Bureau of Materials and Research taking soil samples at the end of Town House Road in Milton earlier this week. (Rochester Voice photo)

MILTON - While the actual work replacing the bridge that connects Town House Road in Milton to New Bridge Road in Lebanon, Maine, won't begin
for at least 14 months, New Hampshire DOT workers are out at the site on a regular basis taking samples of the soils that line the channel the span will cross.
Working in hard hats with loud machinery in constant use, personnel from the Bureau of Materials and Research have been surveying both sides of the channel that connects Depot to Northeast Pond.
"We're finding what you'd expect," quipped one Bureau of Materials and Research worker, "a lot of sand."
He added they did find bedrock on the Milton side just shy of 100 feet down.
Richard Arcand, a New Hampshire DOT program specialist, said the men are doing preliminary work prior to engineering and design.
He said the $2 million project will go out to bid next June and the work will begin in the fall of 2023 or spring of 2024.
As of now the bridge is expected to include a sidewalk for pedestrians, according to Arcand.

The New Bridge Road bridge was removed in the fall of 2012 after it was found to be deteriorating and unsafe for even pedestrian travel.