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Date: 3/17/2021
WESTHAMPTON – The Kings Highway “Skinny Bridge” section in Westhampton will be closed for the majority of the year to construct a new bridge.
According to William Jablonski, the superintendent of the Westhampton Highway Department, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) has been working on the highway on and off since the winter time started.
“It’s a complete replacement job,” said Jablonski. “It’s a town bridge, but [the Massachusetts Highway Department] owns all the bridges, and they fund them over a certain distance.”
The state does inspections on Kings Highway every couple of years so they can tell Westhampton what types of signage they need to put up over a certain amount of time, according to Jablonski.
“They give us recommendations on what things to fix,” said Jablonski, who also added that the “Skinny Bridge” replacement project has been in the works long before he became superintendent.
On March 15, MassDOT began ripping the current “Skinny Bridge” a part to put a new one in.
According to Jablonski, this process should take them well into the fall. “This is not a quick job,” he said. “The Mass. Highway put out a bid, and they got a contractor that’s doing the job there. They watch over the whole project.”
MassDOT resumed construction on the bridge on March 1, where they completed utility work and moved power lines.