New Route 125 pedestrian bridge installed

Workers install the new Route 125 pedestrian bridge over the Cocheco River on Saturday. (Courtesy Rochester Dept. of Public Works)

ROCHESTER -- Route 125 finally got its new pedestrian bridge over the Cocheco River on Saturday.

Pedestrians will not be able to travel across the bridge for at least a week to 10 days after the installation, according to Department of Public Works Director John Storer. The extra time will be needed to secure the bridge, such as pouring concrete over the anchoring screws.

The bridge was originally shut down in August when an inspection by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation found significant corrosion on the underside steel support structures, according to Storer. The bridge is a highly-traveled area for vehicles and pedestrians, and there was concern that anything heavier than a person, such as group of people or a snow plow, could cause the bridge to collapse.

Storer said the total project cost the city about $250,000 in emergency expenditure funds. Work included engineering, demolition, and abutment repairs. The structure itself cost somewhere between $130,000 and $135,000. It was deemed to be more cost effective to replace the whole structure rather than do repairs, Storer said.

The new bridge will be composed of regular structural steel, but Storer said this bridge will be stronger than the old bridge due to two layers of epoxy coating, which will protect the steel from salt and weather elements. The previous bridge did not have the coating and was made of hollow steel tubing, which increased the rate of corrosion, Storer said.