VERONA ISLAND – While crews prepare for construction of the western pylon of the new bridge across the Penobscot River, the state Department of Transportation is planning for another phase of the project.

DOT has begun advertising for a contractor to remove about 150,000 cubic yards of rock ledge on the western side of U.S. Route 1 in Prospect. Removal of the ledge, which will require significant blasting in the area, is necessary to create a new section of Route 1 for an approach to the new Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

Once completed, the road approaching the bridge will be nearly 300 feet from the existing Route 1 in an area that is now a 70-foot-high ledge, according to DOT project manager Tom Doe.

The new road will provide a “somewhat gentler” curve into the new bridge, he said in a news release Tuesday.

“We want traffic on the new bridge to travel no faster than 35 mph,” he said. “We are simply softening the turn so it will be safe at that speed.”

The ledge blasting will begin about 300 feet north of the scenic overlook on Route 1 and end just opposite the entrance to the existing bridge.

DOT expects to award the contract in July, but work will not begin until after Labor Day and probably will continue into May 2006. Department officials announced earlier this year that they have pushed back the completion date for the bridge to sometime in 2006. Initially, they had set July 1, 2005, as a target date.

Since most of the work on the new road will be done off Route 1, the department does not anticipate significant traffic delays. During actual blasting, however, traffic will be stopped in both directions as a safety precaution, Doe said.

The department decided to construct a new bridge after determining that the main cables on the 72-year-old bridge had deteriorated to the point where it was not feasible to replace or repair them.

The plans for the new bridge call for a cable-stayed bridge suspended from two 420-foot-tall pylons. Plans also call for installation of an elevator in the western pylon in Prospect that will carry visitors to a public observation deck at the top. Access to the pylon observatory will be through nearby Fort Knox State Park and the blasting contract will include the first phase of building a new access road into Fort Knox.

The access road will lead to a new 50-car, two-bus parking area at the base of the west pylon.

DOT is working with the state Department of Conservation, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and the Friends of Fort Knox to develop a plan that will incorporate the new observatory into the existing Fort Knox operations.

Crews already have poured the foundations for the two bridge pylons. Under a $4 million contract, crews from Cianbro and Reed & Reed LLC have begun constructing forms and setting reinforcing steel dowels in preparation for pouring the first sections of the pylon.

That contract will bring the pylons up to a height of 142 feet above the Penobscot River up to the underside of the planned bridge deck, where the superstructure begins, or about 13 feet below the planned road.

A separate contract, not yet awarded, will take the pylons to their full 420-foot height.