Town officials last week approved a $100,000 contract with a Newington-based consulting firm to design a West Road bridge whose headwall failed during a storm last summer.
The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with WMC Consulting Engineers. The new bridge will replace the existing one, located just north of the intersection at Turtle Back Road.
The town moved the funding for the project up by a few months so that, following an estimated six-month design phase, the project can go out to bid in late-2019 for spring 2020 construction, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.
New Canaan is expected to pay about $921,000 toward the total $1.8 million cost to replace the bridge, Mann said said.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation has committed to a 50 percent grant that will go toward construction design and administration, Mann told the selectmen at their March 12 meeting.
“That is the best they could offer on this bridge,” he said during the meeting.
Mann had brought the need for a total bridge replacement to the town’s attention in January.
Selectman Nick Williams asked why the funds were not in the budget. Mann said they are, and that Public Works asked municipal funding bodies to move the special appropriation up. The Board of Finance and Town Council both voted in favor of the $100,000 appropriation last month. Of that sum, $10,000 represents contingency.
In addition to Williams, First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Kit Devereaux voted in favor of the contract.