Three box culverts have been positioned in the Aspetuck River creating the foundation for the new bridge that will carry Poverty Hollow Road across that watercourse near the Redding town line.

Town Engineer Ronald Bolmer said September 24 that workers are getting ready to pave the span, as well as install guardrailing and do landscaping work nearby.

Mr Bolmer said he hopes that the project is completed “within the next couple of weeks.”

The bridge project was targeted for completion by August 15, but problems with receiving the correct concrete components for the work from their manufacturer resulted in construction delays. Work started on June 9.

Nagy Brothers Construction Company Inc of Monroe is building the bridge for the town at a cost of about $343,000. Hanson Building Products produced the concrete culverts for the project.

The new bridge will be 30 feet wide, almost double the width of the span that it replaces. The new bridge will be 40 feet long. The project will include about 290 linear feet of new paving in the area. New stormwater drainage structures will be installed.

During the bridge construction project, a nearby parking lot for the 15,300-acre Centennial Watershed State Forest remains open. The forest is in Newtown, Redding, Easton, and Weston.

A northern roadblock to through-traffic is positioned on Poverty Hollow Road in Newtown, just south of its intersection with Farm Meadow Road and Hopewell Road. In Redding, a southern roadblock is located on Poverty Hollow Road just north of its intersection with Church Hill Road. Although there is no through-traffic allowed on a 2.2-mile section of Poverty Hollow Road in Newtown and Redding while the bridge construction is underway, local traffic is allowed in that area.

During the Poverty Hollow Road closure, through-traffic is being diverted to roads including Hopewell Road in Newtown, and Hopewell Woods Road, Black Rock Turnpike, and Church Hill Road in Redding.

The old Poverty Hollow Road bridge did not meet modern standards. Due to its narrowness, accidents occurred in which the exterior left rearview mirrors of approaching vehicles collided with each other as the vehicles passed in opposite directions.