By Joseph Edgerton
Staff Writer

As residents of Pembroke and Allenstown celebrate a new year, construction on the Suncook double-deck bridge has officially begun.

Officials from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation said the old metal-truss two-level bridge will remain in place until construction is finished on a new bridge, most likely in October 2007.

“The older bridge will be used during the entire duration of the project,” said Chris Waszczuk, project manager. “When traffic is diverted onto the new bridge, the old bridge will be dismantled.”

Efforts to sell the old bridge, which for 74 years provided access to the towns via Route 3 and 28, failed months earlier.

According to Waszczuk, the reason no offer was made on the historic structure by Oct. 20 was the prohibitive cost of removal, transport and reassembly at another location.

While the bridge could have been bought for as little as $1, the bargain would have been more than offset by the $330,000 fee to remove the bridge and the additional $147,000 to remove smaller connectors on each side of the river.

The buyer would also have been responsible for preserving the historical significance of the bridge by making sure it served a purpose in its new location.

The total cost of the new structure is $13.6 million. Waszczuk said of the total amount, $1.6 million has already been spent to finance engineering studies, right-of-way permits, and additional concept and design reviews.

Eighty percent of the cost of the project will be covered by federal funds and the remaining 20 percent by state money.

Senior Project Manager Bob Aubrey said the new structure has an anticipated lifespan of 75 to 100 years, with periodic maintenance.

The Department of Transportation had to at least offer the bridge for sale because it qualifies for a place in the National Register of Historic Places. Structures 50 years of age or older qualify for the designation.

Aubrey said the Department of Transportation had initially planned two bridges. One was to be built on the current location, and the other in an adjacent area, but historians were convinced that a double-deck design would be a better fit for the two towns. As is, the bridge is the only structure of its type in the state approved for motor vehicle transportation.

"To the best of my knowledge, the current bridge is the only double-decker bridge in the state," he said. "As far as I know, the Department of Transportation hasn't built a double-decker bridge since the original." While the new structure will resemble the old structure in appearance, the similarities end there.

"We're going to replicate the look and design of the current bridge, but the engineering and materials will be much better. The upper level will have two 12-foot-wide travel lanes and a 10-foot shoulder in each direction," said Aubrey. "The lower level will have an 11-foot travel lane in each direction, a 2-foot shoulder and a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on each side."

Aubrey said the new bridge design will eliminate dangerous traffic patterns in the area, and the shoulders will make pedestrian traffic more feasible. The old design has no shoulders.

The upper level is dedicated to Route 3, and the lower level is set aside for Route 28. Based on average daily traffic reports from 2002, the upper level provides a crossing for 10,000 cars daily, and that number has been projected to increase to 13,000 cars in the future.