Ramp Patterns, Traffic Changes Coming this Summer to Exit 2

Salem Selectmen received an update Monday on Interstate 93 corridor constuction, specifically digging into current and future activity at Exit 2.

A $43.6 million project is underway in that area, contracted to George R. Cairns & Sons, Inc. of Windham in July 2012.

I-93 Project Manager Pete Stamnas joined Jay Levine, NHDOT corridor supervisor, to explain the 3-year construction plan, which began in August 2012.

Stamnas said that Salem commuters can expect some big traffic changes in the Exit 2 area sometime this summer.

As part of the effort to convert the area from a cloverleaf to a diamond-type design, the I-93 southbound on ramp will be shut down, with a temporary ramp being placed east of Keewaydin Drive next to the current off ramp.

The goal is to phase in the project, with the off ramp being shut down in the future to make way for a temporary off ramp exited on Pelham Road across the street from the temporary southbound on ramp.

The permanent ramps will be closer to the existing I-93 bridges.

"Because we're reversing the traffic on the ramps, people need to be in the appropriate lanes on Pelham Road in order to go southbound," said Stamnas.

The end result will also see an 8-lane section of road under the bridges, creating for smoother access to the ramps.

Part of the project will also rebuild the bridges over Pelham Road, which are currently designated as red list.

Stamnas said that 17 of the 19 red list bridges that they have plans to take out of service have been removed.

"The last two are at Exit 2," he said. "Ongoing construction will remove those from service in the next year, year and a half."

To accomodate drivers, the NHDOT will incorporate some signage and message boards on Pelham Road.

Selectmen requested that the businesses on Keewaydin Drive be notified by email of the changes.

Concurrent with the expected ramp changes is a median diversion south of Brookdale Road.

I-93 southbound will soon get diverted into the median and travel through the median across a temporary bridge. That bridge will be constructed in June or early July.

Sometime at the beginning of August, traffic will be diverted to that bridge, right around the time that phase one of the ramp traffic diversion will take place.

Other details of the project, scheduled to be complete in the summer of 2015, include the coordination offive Pelham Road traffic signals, constructions of a 1,95 linear foot sound wall along the northbound mainline near South Shore Road and the construction of a Haigh Avenue mitigation site. The site will preserve 7.6 acres of land and create 9 acre-free of flood-plain mitigation, according to an I-93 project fact sheet.

The final reconstruction and widening called for in the project will run for 1.3 miles on I-93 northbound and 1.8 miles on I-93 southbound.

Stamnas said that all work south of the weigh stations in Windham to just north of the state line will be complete by 2016.

A total of $250 million in construction remains unfunded for projects north of Exit 3 and for a fourth lane south of Exit 1 to the state line.

"We do have legislative authority to issue bonds, however additional revenue needs to be found in order to pay the debt service on those bonds, which is approximately $20 million annually," said Stamnas.

If additional revenue comes, he said the work will be completed by 2020.

Stamnas noted that if the money is not there by the late fall or early winter of 2014, that roadmap could very well be shifted. Projects need to be advertised by that time.