Replacing three bridges over Highway 401 east of London will send thousands of vehicles on detours, including through Dorchester. Officials are meeting now to plan how to keep disruptions to a minimum when work begins next year. Debora Van Brenk reports

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A plan to replace a trio of deteriorated bridges over Highway 401 east of London is welcome and long overdue, say its neighbours — who also fear the potential chaos that three years of roadwork could bring.

With the first construction work still a year away, area politicians are worried that closing the bridges, even temporarily, will divert tens of thousands of vehicles through their communities, or away from them.

Bridge replacement and interchange improvements are planned for three consecutive exits at Westchester Bourne, Dorchester Road and Elgin Road between 2017 and 2019.

“The bridges are in terrible condition and need to be repaired, and unfortunately when you work on a bridge structure, it’s almost impossible to keep it open,” said Jim Maudsley, mayor of Thames Centre.

Officials with the Ontario Transportation Ministry say they plan to make sure any highway closings are brief, and will take place at night when the super-highway sees less traffic.

But detours will in some cases drive vehicles straight through Dorchester’s main commercial and residential street, likely for days at a time. “I think visiting traffic will be slowed down because of the sheer volume of it,” Maudsley said.

Residents already express concerns that some heavy traffic rumbles through town when some drivers try to avoid truck inspection stations at nearby Putnam.

Other times, interchange and bridge closings will mean travellers who want to go into town will have to find other routes and those who want to use a truck stop may have to pass it by at times.

As many as 70,000 vehicles a day travel east and west down that stretch of highway, one of the busiest roads and trade corridors in the country.

Officials from the township, Middlesex County and the Transportation Ministry met last week to talk out some of the concerns.

The county is concerned the additional traffic on its roads will damage them, said Middlesex roads engineer Chris Traini.

The ministry has agreed to do a condition check of county and township roads pre- and post-construction and make sure eastbound detours routes are different from westbound ones, he said.

“That’s still a ton of traffic,” Traini said. “For residents of Dorchester, there are going to be trucks rumbling around all night (during detour times).”

Cost of the project will be released when the contracts have been awarded, a spokesperson for the ministry said.

But those three bridges are just the most concentrated stretches of highway where major roadwork will slow traffic through Southwestern Ontario during the next few years:

-First on the list, with a start late this year or early next year, is revamping the interchange at Highway 401 and Veterans Memorial Parkway.

-After that, the Highbury Avenue/401 interchange will be rebuilt.

-Then bridges over Pond Mills Road and CN rail will be repaired.

-A project to reconstruct the 401 and Highway 4/Colonel Talbot Road interchange is going through an environmental assessment process.

Some of that work may happen simultaneously, although the ministry has said ramp closings won’t take place at two adjacent interchanges at the same time.

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ELSEWHERE

In Chatham-Kent:

the westbound lane of Highway 401 near Merlin Road is being reconstructed. Most construction took place last year and it’s expected to finish by May

rebuilding the 401/Highway 40 interchange will start this year and take two construction seasons to finish.

full pavement reconstruction in eastbound 401 between Essex Road 42 and Drake Road, and westbound lanes between Merlin Road and Bloomfield Road. Start this spring and end in autumn 2017.

reconstruction in eastbound lanes of 401 from Drake Road to east of Bloomfield Road and eastbound lanes from Mull Road to Victoria Road. Construction between 2017 and 2019.

In Oxford County:

replace 401/Highway 19 interchange. Most of the work will take place in 2017.

replace interchange bridge at 401 and Norwich Avenue. Construction could begin in 2016 at the earliest.

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THE GAME PLAN

How traffic will be managed along the trade corridor: