The New Hampshire Department of Transportation sought and on August 28, 2009 was awarded $150,045 to refurbish “a historic stone arch bridge [which] will be preserved and resurfaced to better accommodate pedestrians and bicycles.”
The NH DOT lists the following for the rationale for the project: “Facilities for Pedestrians and Bicycles. Preserve/Create jobs; and economic recovery. Invest in transportation.”
The project is nearly complete now but you still can’t cross the bridge to get to the other side. That’s because there is no other side.
As can be seen from the photos from Hillsborough, NH the word “bridge” does not adequately describe the structure. It’s really more of a pier. Nor does it appear there will ever be a bridge. The railing at the lopped-off end of the structure seems pretty permanent.
An actual bridge that crosses the Contoocook River is about 100 feet away.
Despite the $150,000 of stimulus money spent to resurface a bridge that doesn’t go anywhere, the state of New Hampshire does not have sufficient funding to repair the many functioning bridges that are falling apart. A recent report by TRIP indicates that almost one-third of all New Hampshire bridges are either “structurally deficient” or “functionally obsolete.”
Conservative congressional candidate Sean Mahoney (NH-01) has made New Hampshire’s “Bridge to Nowhere” an issue in his campaign.
He’s calling on incumbent Democrat Carol Shea-Porter “to come clean and explained to the American people how $1 Trillion dollars was spent on projects like this” in a new web video:
Mahoney has urged Congress to stop payment on the balance of the stimulus and to use the remaining money to pay down the national debt.