Rt. 127 Bridge to see paint job

The New Hampshire Department of Transportation (DOT) announced plans to finish work started on the Route 127 Bridge over the Hopkinton Dam Spillway Channel this summer. The DOT will be repainting the state-owned steel bridge.

All the bridge steel will be blasted clean and repainted with three coats of non-lead paint, with a dark green finish color.

Although the bridge will not be completely shut down this summer, it will be reduced to one lane for six to eight weeks.

Jerry Zoller, of the DOT, gave assurances that the project would be completed before the State Fair, by August 27th.

"There's not a whole lot from my point of view that's controversial other than the impact to traffic," Zoller assured Hopkinton Selectmen at a recent meeting.

Chairman Tom Congoran questioned when the DOT thought construction would begin, but Zoller couldn't answer, saying it would be up to the contractor's personal schedule.

Selectman Chris Lawless questioned why the repainting wasn't done when the DOT had the bridge closed last year.

Zoller admitted he had the same question, but expressed his belief that it had to do with funding. He also acknowledged that this schedule is more inconvenient, which he feels bad about, but emphasized their attempts to minimize the impact on traffic by requiring flaggers to be on site.