HARDWICK – Plans to install the new pedestrian bridge across the Lamoille River between Main Street and Daniels Road have come up against the hard realities of increased costs and flood mitigation.
Bids for the new bridge and retaining wall came in higher than funding the town had for the job.
That alone would cause a rethinking of the project, but high water in the Lamoille this year has caused further damage to the river banks and retaining walls in the river corridor through the downtown area. That is causing town leaders to expand the scope of what might need to be done before work on the bridge begins.
David Upson said, “We need to think about how we get water through town.”
Work to plan how that might be done is just beginning.
The project to rebuild a retaining wall on the Main Street side of the river that has been damaged in floods during the past year wass planned as part of the pedestrian bridge project. It will likely become part of that bigger project.
