—– Original Message —–

From:”Stetson Jason B” <Jason.B.Stetson@maine.gov>

To:“townmanager@machiasme.org” <townmanager@machiasme.org>

Cc:“Hamel, Travis W” <Travis.W.Hamel@maine.gov>

Sent:Tue, 28 Apr 2020 14:01:00 +0000

Subject:Upcoming Machias Bridge Work

Hello Christina,

I am a Project Manager with MaineDOT’s Bridge Program. I believe that I previously spoke to you and sent a letter in 2018 describing a project to replace the wearing surfaces on the Machias East, Center, & West Covered Bridges on Rt. 1 over the Machias River.

This project was under construction in 2019, however we ran into some unexpected issues that needed resolution and were not able to be dealt with in 2019 due to scheduling and weather restriction.  We put together a plan to return to Machias to repair the issues, repave the bridges and fully complete the project in May 2020.  We have strict traffic control requirements to meet and have a brief window of time in May had been identified as being available for us to perform work both during the day and night to get this project done.  One lane of traffic and a sidewalk will be open on the bridges at all times and there will be flaggers to maintain traffic flow.

This email is to notify you and the Town of Machias that MaineDOT and it’s Contractor, Gordon Contracting, will be beginning work in early May to repair these bridges.  They will be putting notification in the paper about the width restrictions on the bridge and will have message boards and signs going up at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.  I assume traffic in Machias on Route 1 is lower than previously expected, however, we had planned on heavy traffic and will be signing an alternate route to avoid the bridges (utilizing Route 1A).  This work is short duration and it is expected to be worked on 24 hours a day being completed by May 30^th.

We apologize for the inconvenience in returning to this project once again, but we hope that this will cause minimal inconveniences for the residents and users of these bridges.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions/concerns.

Thank you.

Jason Stetson, P.E.

Project Manager

MaineDOT — Bridge Program

(207) 215-8818