DANVILLE — Five years after safety concerns forced its closure, the Sandown Road Bridge will reopen this fall.
The approximately 20-foot span across the Exeter River is expected to be open to traffic again between mid-October and mid-November, thanks to a $625,000 federal stimulus grant, according to Selectmen's Chairman Shawn O'Neil.
"The majority of the construction is done," O'Neil said. "It's just the pavement now."
Work on the project, expected to cost about $500,000, began in the spring. It will be a relief when the bridge reopens, according to O'Neil and fire Chief Steve Woitkun.
"We're looking forward to that," Woitkun said.
Sandown Road became a dead end in 2005 when the 57-year-old bridge was closed because it was unsafe.
"The whole culvert was collapsed," Woitkun said.
But closing that area to traffic created another problem. Police and fire department vehicles could no longer cross the bridge to respond to emergencies.
"In a life-threatening situation, that was clearly unacceptable," Woitkun said. "That's why we're glad it's going to reopen."
There were at least a couple of life-threatening situations where ambulances had to take alternate routes, but the patients survived, he said.
An ambulance traveling from northern Danville to the nearest hospital, Parkland Medical Center in Derry, would have to find another route, the chief said. If mutual aid from other towns is needed, police and firefighters from Sandown and Fremont would be delayed because of the closed bridge, Woitkun said.
"It would be about a 5-mile detour," road agent Bruce Caillouette said.
Reopening the bridge, expected to last at least 100 years, would mean the end of what O'Neil called "a hot issue in town."
Voters have rejected proposals to repair the bridge, including warrant articles up for approval at Town Meetings in 2006 and 2007. Some residents claimed the project would be too costly for taxpayers to fund.
With the stimulus grant, the remainder of which would be returned to the federal government, less than $5,000 in local money was needed for the project, Cailloutte said. That amount was spent on engineering costs. The contractor is Busby Construction of Atkinson.
The town is now waiting to see if the roadway will settle before beginning paving. Once the paving is complete, the bridge will open, O'Neil said.
"My goal is as soon as possible," he added.
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