A convenient travel route between Branford and North Branford will be detoured for about five months, once the state closes the Route 139 bridge for a deck replacement set to begin Saturday, July 1.  The state plans for the replacement to be complete by the end of November, 2017.

Once the bridge is closed, traffic will detour over School Ground Road at Route 139 (Branford/North Branford town line). From Branford Route 1, traffic will be detoured at the intersection of Route 1 and School Ground Road.

The deck replacement is the final piece of the bridge replacement project, which included earlier work to replace utilities at the bridge site.

Barely discernable as a bridge from the roadway, the Route 139 bridge is located in Branford at point on the state Route 139 falling between Commercial Street and Thompson Road. Built in 1925, the two-lane concrete bridge has been carrying an average of 9,400 vehicles daily since last count (2012). Replacement was necessary to address its deteriorating condition and to address structural integrity, lane width, and flood plain overtopping issues.

The Route 139 state bridge replacement project was first announced in 2012. Once the project is complete, it will include a new single span bridge, a higher deck (from three to three and a half feet higher than the old bridge) and a widened roadway from 30 feet to 32 feet to create standard-width lanes (two 12-foot lanes with 12-foot shoulders).

In 2012, the project cost was set at $4 million. The bridge replacement will be funded with 80 percent federal and 20 percent state money.