TURNER – Drivers using Route 219 in Turner or Leeds should allow some additional travel time this evening, and again on Thursday or Monday, Sept. 19.

The Maine Department of Transportation will close the North Turner West Bridge carrying Route 219 over the Androscoggin River between North Leeds and Howes Corner to prepare to explore underwater ground conditions near the bridge.

“It’s part of our effort to identify possible alternatives for future replacement of the bridge,” DOT Geotechnical Engineer Jeffrey Tweedie said in a prepared statement. “In order to do the explorations, we need to close the bridge to traffic for a two-hour period to mobilize a drill-rig and barge onto the river. To do this, we need to use a crane located on the bridge.”

Tweedie said the closure would be in effect from 6 to 8 p.m. today. A second closure, also from 6 to 8 p.m., will be either Thursday or Monday, Sept. 19.

“It’s difficult for us to predict which of those nights it will be,” he said last week. “The date is dependent on how the work we begin this coming Monday night progresses.”

Drivers can consult DOT’s travel information line, accessed by dialing 511, or by clicking on the 511 logo on the department’s Web site at www.maine.gov/mdot/.

During the closures, eastbound drivers on Route 219 will be detoured onto Route 117 South at Howe’s Corner. A marked detour will take them along 117 to Turner Center, where it will pick up the Center Bridge Road to the Merrill Road in Leeds, along the Merrill Road to Route 106, and north on 106 to reconnect with Route 219 in North Leeds

Westbound traffic on Route 219 will be detoured onto Route 106 to the Merrill Road to the Center Bridge Road to Route 117 to Route 219.

Drivers using Route 108 between Route 219 and Route 4 in Livermore will still be able to access the portion of Route 219 between the bridge and Howe’s Corner but may have farther to travel because of the closure.

“If they’re coming south on Route 108 and want access to Route 219 eastbound, they’ll have to go west on Route 219 to Howe’s Comer and pick up the detour there,” Tweedie said. Conversely, drivers headed for Route 108 coming west on Route 219 will have to follow the detour to Howe’s Corner and then come north on Route 219 to access Route 108.

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