LEBANON — The repairs necessary to reopen a closed bridge on Route 12A will only take a few days to complete, but it could be a month or more before the work is done, as the city awaits approval from the owner of the railroad tracks that pass underneath it.

The bridge over the railroad tracks just south of Seminary Hill has been closed to vehicular traffic since March 6, when the city received the bridge’s most recent inspection report, which found that some support elements below the bridge deck deteriorated to the point they need to be reinforced immediately. New England Central Railroad’s approval process for repairs is expected to take four to six weeks or more, City Manager Shaun Mulholland said in a recent interview. Once the plan is approved, reopening the bridge should take a matter of days.

New England Central Railroad is “in close contact” with engineering contractors and the city and is “moving as quickly as possible to get the repairs underway,” a spokesperson for the company said via email Monday. 

R.S. Audley, the contractor for the repairs, already has the reinforcements ready to go.

“They could’ve gone in there the weekend the bridge closed,” Mulholland said.

The 145-foot span typically serves 10,000 vehicles a day. Traffic is now being diverted on a recommended 4.5-mile detour up Seminary Hill and along Miracle Mile to Exit 19 on Interstate 89, where travelers can backtrack to Route 12A via Exit 20. Many motorists are choosing to use Glen Road as a detour, but that route includes a one-lane railroad underpass where traffic backs up.

Meanwhile, as the city waits on the New England Central Railroad to approve its emergency repair plan, long-term bridge replacement plans, which have been under consideration for decades, remain in limbo.

Last week, City Council members voiced skepticism about a plan for the city to take ownership of the Westboro Rail Yard property from the state and convert it into a public park with playing fields. (The tracks under the closed bridge also pass through the rail yard.)

Final plans for the permanent Route 12A dry bridge replacement are being reviewed by the Department of Transportation.

Without further delays, the city could accept bids on the project this fall, Mulholland said. But if the city decides not to buy the rail yard, those plans would need to be redesigned for a fourth time.

“We have the final plans with DOT, and they were in the process of reviewing that and we said, ‘Hold on,’ ” Mulholland said Thursday. “We’re the ones holding off the bridge project.”

Crucially, an access road for the rail yard property is tied to the bridge replacement, meaning any changes to city’s plans for the rail yard could delay a more permanent solution for the bridge.

At last week’s council meeting, New Hampshire Department of Transportation Commissioner William Cass and deputy commissioner Andre Briere met with council members. The meeting was scheduled after state officials changed language in a draft contract that dictates how environmental contamination at the site would be managed. The city contended the language does not explicitly hold the state responsible for cleanup or monitoring of environmental contamination, despite that being a key city demand across years of negotiations.

The state has owned the Westboro property since 1999. The Westboro Rail Yard property has extensive environmental contamination from its former use, including petroleum, other fossil fuel-derived contamination and arsenic, a 2023 environmental study found.

The total project, including the access road, is most recently expected to cost $21 million, Mulholland reported Wednesday, with $5 million to be paid by the city.

“Right now there’s no timeline in terms of the permanent replacement of the bridge,” Mulholland said.

During their discussion with state officials last week, city councilors debated whether the project is still worth pursuing given ongoing concerns over the contract language. Mayor Tim McNamara questioned whether the cost of the project — the city’s 2025-2030 capital improvement plan earmarks $1.8 million for it — is worth the benefit.

“I’ve had certainly some second thoughts about that, particularly in our recent discussions regarding limiting capital projects,” McNamara said.

On the other side of the argument, outgoing Councilor Karen Liot Hill, who is leaving the council after being elected to the state Executive Council, argued that purchasing the rail yard is part of an ongoing effort to revitalize West Lebanon.

“For the next 75 years, how will the Westboro Rail Yard benefit the people of West Lebanon? We don’t get another bite at this apple,” Liot Hill said.

Somewhere in the middle was Councilor Chris Simon, chairman of the West Lebanon Revitalization Advisory Committee and representative for Ward 1, which includes West Lebanon. He said while he had some “reservations about acquiring contaminated property” residents regularly express the need to improve the parcel. “They want something new,” Simon said. “They don’t want to just see it sit there as the blighted blight that it had been.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, the council discussed setting a public hearing for April to hear residents’ opinions about moving forward with the Westboro purchase but did not set a date.

 Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.