The Mount Hope Bridge will be closed to traffic in both directions for four days next month for a $1 million repaving operation, the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority (RITBA) has announced.
The 96-year old bridge linking Bristol and Portsmouth over Mount Hope Bay will be closed to all traffic beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 14, and will reopen at 5 a.m. Monday, Aug. 18. But if there is any severe weather in the forecast, the project will be rescheduled for a weekend in September, officials said.
Emergency vehicles will not be permitted to cross during the closure, but RITBA has been coordinating with officials in Bristol and Portsmouth about detours.
“We appreciate the public’s patience as we get this work done,” Lori Caron Silveira, RITBA’s executive director, said in a statement. “We know that everyone will welcome a smoother ride over the bridge and hope that the advance notice will help people make their plans to seek alternate routes for that weekend.”
Cumberland-based J.H. Lynch and Sons was awarded a $1.1 million contract by RITBA to smooth the roadway by milling it and applying an ultra-thin bonded overlay between the curbs. A copy of the contract was not immediately made available.
RITBA expects the new surface to last five years — coincidentally around the same time a contractor is expected to begin reconstructing the deck of the bridge, the Bristol Phoenix reported in May.
The state of the Mount Hope bridge has come into question — namely the corroded cables that hold up the roadway. RITBA spokesperson Cara Cromwell confirmed that dehumidification of the cables is a project that will also be scheduled in the future.
Inspection reports on the condition of the existing cables are not being made public. RITBA declined to release a fall 2024 inspection report to WPRI-12, citing national security concerns, the station reported on June 24.
Cromwell told Rhode Island Current all four of the bridges RITBA operates are considered “essential infrastructure,” so their inspection reports fall under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Sensitive Security Information designation.
That means only the federal government can authorize the release of the reports. Cromwell said the Mount Hope Bridge was rated “fair” in the fall 2024 inspection report.
“If the inspection had revealed any urgent issues, we would have been alerted immediately,” Cromwell said. “There were no significant findings.”
RITBA has asked the Department of Homeland Security to review inspection reports for the Mount Hope, Pell, Jamestown Verrazzano, and Sakoner River bridges to determine which, if any, portions can be made public.
“We will not be able to make public any portion of the report until we hear back,” Cromwell said in an email. “In the meantime, if the inspection had revealed any urgent issues, we would have been alerted immediately.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to request for comment.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current
