The balky Sarah Mildred Long Bridge from Portsmouth to Maine may be permanently repaired before the year is out.
"We're hoping to do it this year," New Hampshire Department of Transportation spokesman Bill Boynton said last week after the New Hampshire state Senate voted to allow the department to take control of the bridge from the Maine-New Hampshire Interstate Bridge Authority.
"The bill will allow us to take responsibility for the bridge from a private entity," said Boynton. "Previously we couldn't repair it because it was privately owned; now the state can assume responsibility."
He said the project is expected to cost $1.2 million.
"The authority has $500,000 on hand and the remaining $700,000 for the project will be split between the states of New Hampshire and Maine."
Boynton said the overhaul would provide a permanent fix for an electrical problem that first came up in October 2006.
A temporary system involving underwater electrical cable has been used in the interim.
The bridge, which was built in 1940 and straddles the harbor between Portsmouth and Kittery, is routinely raised to allow ships to pass.
It was closed to motor vehicles for six weeks from October to December 2006, but remained open for ships.
The repair will allow electricity from Maine and New Hampshire to power the bridge and the underwater cable will no longer be required.
"I am writing to comment on a letter written recently and noted in your Starts & Stops column," Gordon Means wrote in an e-mail. "George M. Caplan wrote that the escalators at Alewife station are often out of operation. You countered with a specious quote from Joe Pesaturo from the MBTA saying everything is fine, implying through general statistics that the escalators are working 99 percent of the time."
"Mr. Pesaturo is, at best, grossly mistaken, and at worst, a typical obfuscator of the truth in his response. I use the Alewife facility every day, and I can tell you that Mr. Caplan is correct. On the average, the Alewife escalators are out of operation at least once every fortnight."
"I agree with Mr. Caplan - department stores would never stand for this repair record. Why does the MBTA?"
We gave Pesaturo a chance to refine his answer. "While the statistics provided last month for escalator/elevator availability rates were absolutely correct, they reflected the overall rates for all of the T's vertical transportation units.
"This means that some units were available 100 percent of the time while others were available for periods of time less than that.
"As far as the Alewife escalators are concerned, a report covering the period from Dec. 12 to Jan. 11 shows that the availability rate was nearly 87 percent during that period."
"To improve the availability rate at Alewife, the MBTA's contractor, KONE, is presently rebuilding the escalator that connects the platform and lobby.
"In the near future, work will begin to rebuild the escalator that connects the garage and lobby.
"It's the availability rate for this specific escalator which requires the most improvement.
"When the work to rebuild this unit has been completed, higher performance levels will be achieved."
As a side note, he said, "each month, every escalator in the MBTA system is temporarily shut down for preventative maintenance activity, but the T makes every effort to do this critical work between the peak commuting periods in order to minimize any inconvenience to customers."
Starts & Stops appears every other Thursday in Globe North. Transportation comments and questions may be sent to starts@globe.com.
