Lincoln council opposes bridge closing for repairs

LINCOLN –The Town Council on Monday night supported sending a letter to the Department of Transportation to express opposition to closing the Chester bridge during its scheduled repainting next summer.

The $1.9 million project will involve sandblasting and repainting the entire 610-foot bridge over the Penobscot River that connects northern Lincoln with Chester.

DOT officials are looking into the options of closing the entire bridge to do the work or closing only a single lane of traffic at a time, according to project manager Mark Parlin.

In a letter to Parlin, the council said closing the bridge could have adverse economic impact on the area and hinder emergency services.

A possible bridge closure also could cause problems with commercial traffic, according to Town Manager Glenn Aho.

“Closing the bridge would bring a lot of unnecessary truck traffic through dense residential areas,” Aho said Tuesday.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Parlin said that closing the entire bridge would be significantly cheaper and take less time than the anticipated three months to repaint the bridge in stages.

A major expense of the project will be putting up lead paint containment equipment, Parlin said, and closing the bridge would mean it would have to be put up only once.

The project is in the early planning stages and the DOT is still investigating both options, Parlin said.

“There have been some concerns and we recognize that they’re valuable,” he said.

Also at Monday night’s meeting, the council confirmed Aho’s appointment of George McLain as the town’s new transfer station director. McLain succeeds Nancy Page, who left the position last month after a problem arose with the town’s backhoe.

After serving as a part-time laborer at the station for a year, McLain started officially Tuesday and has been busy maintaining equipment and completing paperwork, he said.

The station may look for another part-timer if it gets busy this winter, although the primary push right now is to boost recycling, McLain said Tuesday.