Hope bridge work forces detour

HOPE — Traffic will be detoured onto the Highway 200 business loop for 35 days so the bridge over the BNSF Railway can be rehabilitated, according to the Idaho Transportation Department.

The work is scheduled to start after the Labor Day holiday and continue through mid-October.

The top layer of the bridge, which also carries traffic over the Hope boat basin, will be scoured off and replaced with a new concrete surface. Expansion joints in the span will also be repaired.

Westway Construction of Airway Heights, Wash., emerged as the apparent low bidder last month for the $1.3 million bridge improvement project.

To accommodate the flow of traffic through the cities of Hope and East Hope, the detour route’s road surface will be improved and striped.

“They will do an overlay on the business loop,” said ITD spokeswoman Barbara Babic, adding that pedestrian crosswalks will also be painted onto the business loop at several locations.

The speed limit on the business loop will remain set at 25 mph. The business loop won’t be widened, although parking spaces will be reconfigured slightly to facilitate the safe passage of two-way traffic

The contractor may use flaggers to help guide traffic and ITD will ask law enforcement to conduct extra patrols on the business loop if lead-footed driving becomes an issue.

The state believes the project can be accomplished with minimal impact to area residents. When completed, the project will provide a newly resurfaced business loop with fresh pavement markings and the life of the bridge will be prolonged.

Some longtime locals refer to the span as the Bridge to Nowhere because construction of the bridge began in the late 1960s, but the project sat unfinished until the early 1970s because of a funding shortfall.