A phone call from a local motorist to the Trenton Town Office may have led to more emergency repairs on the bridge that leads onto Mount Desert Island.
Trenton Town Administrator Carol Reed Walsh wrote on the Trenton Town Crier, “Today we had a call from Julie Hall as she was going over the Trenton Bridge — she expressed concern and I called DOT to have them look at the area they had worked on last week. I received a notice tonight from DOT that they are going to have to complete some emergency joint work on the bridge.”
Residents in the area reported on social media that a piece of metal was flapping up as vehicles drove over the expansion joint of the bridge as drivers headed onto the island. Others reported that the bridge felt bouncy.
An email from the Region 4 traffic engineer John Theriault sent just after 4 p.m. Tuesday explained that the state will be doing further emergency repairs to the Trenton Bridge on Route 3.
The work will begin shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday and is expected to continue through the night and until 6 a.m. Thursday.
Message boards went out Wednesday morning to alert commuters.
According to the alert, the road will be limited to one-way traffic, which will be controlled by traffic signals.
At the Southwest Harbor Select Board meeting on Tuesday, board member Carolyn Ball worried about effective notification of things, such as bridge delays, and said, “It affects us all on the island.”
“I can also add about that emergency bridge repair. I’ve driven over it a few times now, and in a cross-brace, it flaps up,” Southwest Harbor Select Board Chair Noah Burby said.
Earlier on Tuesday, commuters were commenting on social media about an obstruction sticking out of the bridge’s travel way.
On the afternoon of Oct. 20, a broken joint on the bridge and Department of Transportation crews repairing it led to massive traffic delays for people trying to leave the island.
The Department of Transportation’s Joe Lacerda, replying to an email inquiry, had said that the cause of the traffic backup was due to a necessary emergency repair of a broken bridge joint on the Trenton Bridge.
According to Bar Harbor Police Sgt. Doug Brundrett, his department received no prior notification of the Oct. 20 bridge work and by the time officers had made their way to the work site, the Department of Transportation was wrapping up its work.
There were, most likely, two main issues causing the severe traffic jam: the bridge being down to one lane and the use of temporary traffic lights by the department that were not in sync with the regular traffic lights at the head of the island.
Brundrett said that at one point he drove around to check on traffic backups on both routes 3 and 102 and found traffic to be backed up to Norway Drive at Hamilton’s Pond on Route 3, approximately 5 miles, and to the Somesville One Stop on Route 102, approximately 7 miles.
At the time, Lacerda had said that there are two options for repair and which option will be chosen is “in Augusta’s hands.”
One option will require the bridge to be shut down to one lane and the repair may take “a week or more” depending on what transportation officials find when they start the repair. Lacerda did not give any time frame for the second repair option. Wednesday night’s repair is publicized as lasting just one night.
The “bridge is safe,” Lacerda had said earlier in October. “We will be checking the temporary repair on a regular basis to make sure it is still intact [sic] and working.”
This story was originally published by The Bar Harbor Story. To receive regular coverage from the Bar Harbor Story, sign up for a free subscription here.
