MONTROSE -- Starting Monday, drivers traveling on Route 706 west of Montrose will find themselves utilizing a 12-mile detour. The detour forces drivers to use Ridge Road and Route 29 while crews replace an aging bridge in Bridgewater Township.
Bill Smith lives along the detour route and watched all the new detour signs go up. It's a day he's been dreading for awhile.
"You have to go get groceries and I have to go get parts," he explained. "I go down that road every day. Now, I have to go around and we're farmers and they're putting up traffic on this road. I don't know how you're going to get on the road. The water trucks are bad now."
And this detour doesn't just affect people who live along the detour route. Crews are putting the finishing touches on full traffic signals at this intersection to replace the regular flashing ones temporarily in anticipation of all the expected traffic.
In the South Montrose area, the intersection of Route 29 and Ridge Road is already considered pretty busy. But the sight of these temporary traffic lights worry some drivers Newswatch16 spoke with as they wonder just how bad it could get with all this added extra traffic.
"It's going to be really interesting because all the water trucks have to go that way and this intersection is not a good intersection anyway," said Lanny Adams of Dimock.
The detour is expected to last ten weeks.
