Chestnut Street Bridge in Dover, New Hampshire, to Close Tuesday for Rehab

The five month closure of the Chestnut Street Bridge in Dover for a rehabilitation project begins Tuesday.

All motor traffic will be detoured from the 47-year-old bridge over the Cochco River as a $2.1 million project scheduled to last until Friday, May 19, gets underway. Alternatives for traffic are Washington Street, Third and Fourth Streets, Central Avenue, and Main Street.

The pedestrian path under the bridge will close at the beginning and end of the project to allow work crews to get situated, but will remain open during the project.

The bridge closure will affect easy access to Dover Police headquarters, Dover District Court, and the main Post Office, along with the parking garage and the Dover Transportation center, home to the Amtrak Downeaster. It could also take longer to get to the entrance of the Dover Community Trail.

During the course of the project, the bridge's pavement will be replaced by a new, wearing-course pavement. The membrane, which helps protect a bridge from corrosive conditions, will also be replaced, and the sidewalks reconstructed. Concrete in the bridge deck that has deteriorated will be replaced.

The project became necessary when a contract working on bridge expansion joints a few years ago noticed concrete delamination, or separation, in the sidewalks. The paved deck has shown some distress, according to the city.

Dover Police Lt. Marn Speidel told Seacoast Current the closure should not impact police response times.

"Our uniformed police patrol assignments are already broken up by geographical sector. Generally speaking, the officers will already be in the field when they are dispatched to emergency calls. For those occasions when an officer needs to respond from headquarters, our cruisers are equipped with traffic signal pre-emption devices (and of course emergency lights and siren). So, we hope not to experience drastic delays in our emergency response times," Speidel said.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH