MEREDITH — As the road project in downtown Meredith moves onto Route 25, the state project manager says drivers can expect “a fair amount” of congestion over the next two weeks, although not as much as they experienced yesterday morning.
“It’ll hopefully be better than today,” said Ed Sperry, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation’s on-site contract administrator, in a telephone conversation on Tuesday. At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, traffic attempting to get through the Route 3/25 intersection was backed up for a mile and a half.
Sperry said crews were looking at ways of smoothing out the operation so it is less chaotic for drivers, but because Route 25 is much narrower than the Route 3 section they have been working on, there is not a great deal that can be done to avoid disruptions.
“On Route 3, there was all kinds of room, but Route 25 is not that way,” Sperry said.
The road project is designed to ease the traffic problems at the intersection of routes 3 and 25 by eliminating one northbound lane on Route 3, to provide a larger turning radius for trucks turning south from Route 25 East. The project includes new curbing, sidewalks and drainage.
Work on the project will cease for the summer on June 8, ahead of Laconia Motorcycle Week activities, and will resume after Labor Day. Sperry said the road arrows and signs will go back up to resume the old traffic pattern for the summer.
While work on Route 3 was in progress, one of the two southbound lanes was eliminated due to the need for bridge upgrades. That will not change immediately because of the need for a staging area, but the two lanes will be restored for the summer, and the final project will retain those lanes.
Over the next two weeks, the crews will be working on the north side of Route 25, replacing curbs and sidewalks and incorporating drainage work. When the project resumes in September, the crew will focus on the south side of Route 25.
R.M. Piper of Plymouth is the general contractor for the $2.58 million project overseen by the Department of Transportation.
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