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By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
POMFRET — The town is hoping it’s on track to get the Taft Pond Road bridge open by summer.
In March the state ordered the bridge closed. State inspectors said the substructure had deteriorated since the last inspection, in January 2020.
Detours were set up around Taft Pond Road.
First Selectwoman Maureen Nicholson said the town hired Hammonasset Construction LLC of Clinton to get the bridge to a point where it could be reopened. And the company has made good progress.
Nicholson said the town hopes the bridge can be reopened by the end of May.
She said the contractor is done with the welding and is putting on guard rails. After that, it will be painted.
The town hopes that this fix will gain the town more time — maybe more than a year — to continue to pursue state Department of Transportation local program grant money.
Nicholson said the state had done a light inspection of the 25-foot bridge in January 2020 and had told the town it was in bad shape, adding that the town had years to repair/replace it.
The bridge was posted to a 3-ton limit and reduced to one lane.
The 25-foot bridge (No. 05664) is approximately 1 mile north of Route 97.
Crossing Mashamoquet Brook, the bridge was last rebuilt in 1993.
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