Spokane County's division of engineering and roads recently began work on two projects located north of the Spokane city limits that together are valued at roughly $3.7 million.

Senior county engineer Bob Brueggeman says the county has awarded a $1.9 million contract to Spokane-based Max J. Kuney Co. to replace a bridge that crosses the Little Spokane River near the intersection of Dartford Drive and Mill Road.

The bridge, which is more than 50 years old, has deteriorated and has had weight restrictions posted for some time, Brueggeman says.

Construction of the new structure will take place throughout this year, and during the work, the bridge will remain closed, he says. It should reopen to traffic before the end of this year.

Brueggeman says the new bridge will be the same length as the former structure, but will be slightly wider to accommodate one vehicle lane in each direction with bike lanes on each side.

Additional work to realign the roadway approaches to the bridge is scheduled to take place next spring, Brueggeman says.

Eighty percent of the bridge replacement project's funds are from a federal program, with the remaining 20 percent of the costs being paid by the county, he says.

Early last week, the county was to begin work on a nearby project to rehabilitate and reconfigure a 1.3-mile stretch of north Mill Road between Hawthorne and Hastings roads, also near the Whitworth University campus.

Brueggeman says a roughly $1.8 million contract for that work was awarded to Inland Asphalt Co., of Spokane Valley.

The currently four-lane section of Mill is to be realigned to allow for a continuous, two-way center turn lane and bike lanes on each side of the road, Brueggeman says. To allow for those changes, one lane of travel in each direction will be removed.

Brueggeman says the changes to the roadway layout are intended to lessen the amount of collisions related to left-turning traffic, and to accommodate all modes of transportation.

The project also will include grinding down and overlaying the asphalt on portions of the road, or completely rebuilding its surface in areas that are more worn down, he says.

The intersections of Mill with Hawthorne and with Five Mile Road also will be modified to accommodate the changes to the road configuration, Brueggeman says. Both of those intersections are controlled by traffic signals, and they will continue to have traffic signals after the project is complete.

Meanwhile, the county plans to rebuild the intersection of Mill and Waikiki Road to be a roundabout. That T-shaped intersection currently has turn lanes to allow for turning traffic.

Brueggeman says the project should be completed before October.