The Connecticut Department of Transportation on Monday closed Route 123 in the area of the New Canaan Field Club in order to replace a culvert running under the state road.
The closure will continue for about three weeks, with northbound traffic detoured at Parade Hill Road and southbound traffic at Canoe Hill Road.
“You come down 123 onto Canoe Hill and and onto 106 and that gets you around the area,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told members of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure during their April 12 meeting.
“We put in additional signage in the Rosebrook area and to have people avoid Rosebrook itself, since we didn’t want people to consider going down Rosebrook or Brushy Ridge. Those are for people who use Waze.”
Originally scheduled for last summer, the project was delayed due to the COVID-19 public health emergency and then pencilled in again for October. But the town urged the state to put off a project so close to Thanksgiving, as well as the date that asphalt plants shut down for winter, and the state agreed. Though town officials had asked that the work be put off until next summer, the DOT decided to move ahead this month.
The project is expected to cost the state nearly $1 million, DOT officials have said. The box culvert to be replaced spans the Rose Brook just north of the intersection of Smith Ridge Road and Glen Drive, in the area of 183 Smith Ridge.
Mann said the town worked closely with one resident most affected by the closure who required access to the road on Tuesday morning.
“And then at that point it will be closed entirely,” he said.