CORNISH — The Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge will be closed to traffic from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. until Friday as workers with the state Department of Transportation replace several worn deck planks on the New Hampshire side of the historic span.

Workers spent Monday setting up message signs and doing other prep work for the project, delaying the planned closure by a day, according to Tim Boodey, the assistant administrator of DOT’s Bridge Maintenance Bureau.

The bridge, which carries about 2,700 vehicles a day over the Connecticut River, will reopen to traffic each day at 3 p.m. this week. Work on the project is expected to take four weeks, and starting next week traffic will be alternating one-way, Boodey said.

This week’s daytime closing is expected to be a hardship for commuters and patrons of 12% Solution, the Route 12A store in Cornish near the bridge.

“Everybody is concerned … it’s going to affect our business big time,” said Janis Hamel, a co-owner of the store. “A lot of our customers come from Windsor, from Vermont.”

But she also said people realize the project is for a worthy cause. “It’s going to be an impact on us, but we certainly understand they have to do the repairs or we won’t have (the bridge),” she said.

Built in 1866, the 449-foot long bridge is the longest covered wooden bridge in the United States. It was closed for more than a year in the late 1980s for a $4.45 million reconstruction.

Work on the plank replacements, which is being handled in-house by the DOT, is expected to be completed in early February.

News staff writer John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com.

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