A section of Walnut Tree Hill Road will be closed for approximately 12 hours between Friday, October 19, and Saturday October 20, due planned work on a bridge replacement project.

Newtown Police announced the planned closure on Thursday, October 18. 

Walnut Tree Hill Road will be closed between its intersections with Glen Road and River Edge Drive between 4 pm Friday, October 19, and 4 am Saturday, October 20. All traffic will need to access Walnut Tree Hill Road from its intersection on Church Hill Road during those hours. 

Newtown Police announced the planned closure on Thursday, October 18. 

The Walnut Tree Hill Road project is replacing of a town bridge that crosses above the Pootatuck River, just north of Walnut Tree Hill road’s intersection with Glen Road.

Nagy Brothers Construction Company of Monroe is the general contractor on the approximately $3 million project. The town is covering 20 percent of the costs, with the federal government covering 80 percent, Public Works Director Fred Hurley [naviga:u]told The Newtown Bee in August[/naviga:u]. Bridge completion is slated for this month, but past delays may result in the project not being finished until late December, Mr Hurley warned at that time.

The new bridge is being built to replace an antiquated, nearly 100-year-old span. The wider new span will be easier for motorists to navigate. The new 60-foot-long bridge will have a sidewalk on one side.

While construction is underway, a traffic signal has been controlling alternating one-way traffic on the partially built bridge.

The Walnut Tree Hill bridge replacement is one of three similar projects concurrently happening in town. A state Department of Transportation project is replacing a bridge in Sugar Street (Route 302), just west of its intersection with Main Street/South Main Street (Route 25), and another Town project on the northern end of Toddy Hill Road is replacing an outdated bridge there, just south of that road's intersection with Berkshire Road (Route 34).