ROUTE 146 OVERPASS TO GET OVERHAUL
Woonsocket Hill Road bridge to close Monday
NORTH SMITHFIELD – The state Department of Transportation (DOT) has already installed signs and digital message boards and on Monday the Woonsocket Hill Road overpass for Route 146 will be closed as a bridge reconstruction project, lasting through December, gets under way.
The project’s full impact on local residents and businesses won’t be known until the road shutdown takes place, but Ellen Puccetti, a fourth generation owner of Wright’s Farm Dairy and Bakery at 200 Woonsocket Hill Road was hoping for the best on Thursday.
“I don’t know what will happen,” Puccetti said of the scheduled shutdown of the Woonsocket Hill Road Bridge
just uphill from her family’s more than 100-year-old dairy farm operation.
The DOT’s message sign on Woonsocket Hill Road states that Wright’s Farm Dairy will be open during the closure, but Puccetti said some customers may still not know they will only be able to reach the business from the Great Road side of Woonsocket Hill Road where the dairy and bakery are located and not from the side running over to Providence Pike, Route 5, near the Primrose Fire Station.
Residents on that side of town will have to take the detour up Route 5 to Pound Hill Road and out to Great Road before turning onto the Wright’s Farm Dairy side of Woonsocket Hill Road, a potentially 20 minute or longer detour, Puccetti noted.
The key, she said, will be informing tcustomers about the changed traffic patttern and the fact Wright’s Dairy Farm will still be open as the bridge reconstruction project continues.
“We will be remaining open with our regular hours and there will be no interruption of access from Great Road, Route 146A,” Puccetti said.
“But from Route 5, people will not be able to get through bridge site until December,” she said.
The DOT is also starting improvements on the two concrete and steel arch bridges carrying Route 146 over Pound Hill Road, but that work will only cause lane changes in the traffic patterns and not a shutdown of the bridges themselves, according to the DOT. Improvements are also being planned by the DOT for the concrete bridge carrying Great Road over the railroad tracks at Lapre Road but the details of that separate improvement project have not yet been finalized.
Puccetti said the Woonsocket Hill Road Bridge repair will not only affect customers coming to the business but also employees living out of town and using Route 5 to get to work and even the farm’s dairy cow operations and milk production.
Wright’s maintains feed production fields off Pound Hill Road and farm staff will have to make longer trips to pick up silage (cow feed) and bring it to the farm, she noted.
Despite the potential impacts, Puccetti said she understands the time had come for the state to update the deteriorating steel girder and concrete Woonsocket Hill Road bridge. “It is for the greater good and we know that and we hope all of our customers understand that as well,” she said.
Wright’s has undergone many changes over the years, from its early days as just a producer of milk to its current make-up of offering fresh farm milk and dairy products and a wide range of baked goods, pastry, and even decorated cakes. The farm opened a new cake decorating center last year where its cake designers now put out top quality cakes and specialty items to order.
While the Woonsocket Hill Road project is only just starting, Puccetti said she had closely watched the DOT conduct a similar Route 146 bridge replacement at Central Street last year and was encouraged by how quickly it was competed. “We kept an eye on Central Street because we knew we were next and it went very well and finished ahead of schedule,” she said.
Puccetti said she has also been in contact with Town Administrator Gary Ezovski about the project and the DOT’s project manager and feels they are aware of the potential impacts on the dairy farm.
“The DOT manager said he will do what he can to help us with whatever we need, which was very nice and we are glad they reached out to us,” she said.
The Woonsocket Hill Road Bridge and Pound Road Bridge updates are part of an $11.8 million Route 146 Corridor Bridge project that the state has included in its 10-year RhodeWorks bridge improvement schedule, Charles St. Martin, III, the DOT’s spokesman, noted on Thursday. The Route 146 bridge work received 80 percent funding from the federal government and remainder being covered by the state, he noted.
The DOT’s Central Street reconstruction, now completed, cost a total of $7.7 million under a similar federal and state funded project and the state is currently working on the $13.5 million reconstruction of the Old Stone Arch Bridge at Route 5 and Main Street, Slatersville, under yet another local project, he noted.
“We are catching up with needed work on these deficient bridges and that is part of our 10 year plan,” St. Martin said. The RhodeWorks plan calls for the repair or reconstruction of 150 of the state’s most deteriorated bridges and repairs and improvements to another 500 deficient bridges as the improvement project continues.
The state plans to spend a total of $5 billion in state and federal money during the course of the work over 10 years and reduce the number of deficient classified structures to within accepted industry targets.
The scheduled work on the Woonsocket Hill Road Bridge will begin on Monday after its closing. The project will include the weekend demolition of the bridge between March 2 and March 4, when even Route 146 will be closed at the work site. Traffic will be detoured to allow for a speedy removal of the bridge structure and debris. The highway will experience lane closures at times after that as work begins on installation of the new bridge components, according to St. Martin.
The existing deficient bridge carries about 1,000 cars a day on Woonsocket Hill Road, St. Martin noted.
The DOT noted in its closing announcement that motorists can expect delays during the closure, and it also recommended the use of alternate routes. Detour information for both closures is available at www.ridot.net/detourmaps. More information on RhodeWorks and its projects is available at www.ridot.net/ RhodeWorks.