For want of funding, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation has shelved the project to replace the superstructure of the General Sullivan Bridge crossing the mouth of Little Bay and connecting Dover and Newington with a new span carrying bicycle and pedestrian traffic.
The General Sullivan Bridge was built in 1934, one of only four bridges— and the last to survive — built to a unique design that was widely mimicked in later bridge projects. The 1,528-foot span was closed to vehicular traffic in 1984, but remained open to pedestrians and cyclists until 2018 when it was found to be unsafe.
The future of the bridge arose with the project to improve the heavily travelled 3.5-mile stretch of the Spaulding Turnpike between Exit 1 and the Dover Toll Plaza, which was undertaken between 2010 and 2020.
When restoration proved impractical, the bridge was offered for sale but drew no buyers. NH DOT chose to remove the superstructure of the bridge and in its place construct a nine-foot span, 1,550-foot long and nine-foot-wide bridge for pedestrians and bicyclists. The bridge would consist of two steel girders and a concrete deck mounted on a V-frame atop the existing masonry piers. The project was scheduled to be completed in 2026.
In June 2023 , the state received $20 million for the project in federal funding distributed through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program (RAISE), through the efforts of Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Representative Chris Pappas.
NH DOT initially estimated the project to cost $34.8 million, but the apparent low bid, submitted by Reed and Reed, Inc. of Woolwich, Maine, came to $82,235,768 in 2021 dollars and nearly double the department’s updated estimate of $45.6 million.
Meanwhile, NH DOT is considering what can be done to improve the pedestrian and cycling path on the northbound side of the Little Bay bridges, which is just 10 feet wide.
