Machinery was set up at the site of the Canadaway Creek bridge on Route 5 earlier this week in anticipation of construction commencing Friday morning.

The Route 5 bridge over Canadaway Creek in the town of Dunkirk will be closed for the foreseeable future, as the State Department of Transportation (DOT) begins its complete reconstruction of the bridge that has stood for over 90 years.

The Route 5 bridge replacement project was to get underway Friday morning, with closures taking effect at 6 a.m. Detours will be necessary as the bridge cannot remain open during the project because the entire structure is being completely replaced.

The truck detour will divert traffic from Route 5 to Route 20, beginning on Route 5/Lake Shore Drive in Dunkirk. Trucks will use Route 60/Bennett Road in Fredonia to get to Route 20. At the opposite end, trucks will use Route 394/Portage Road in Westfield to access Route 20. The detour length of 4.4 miles will increase travel time by nine minutes.

For non-commercial travel, a detour will utilize Temple Road, Matteson Street, Willow Road, and Van Buren Road to avoid the bridge, which totals 2.1 miles added to the route for an increased travel time of four minutes. Signs were already posted earlier this week at various points, including Van Buren Road on Route 5 in Portland and Willow Road in Dunkirk to alert drivers of the detour.

The DOT is breaking ground on the project almost exactly two years from the time of an informational meeting held in the town of Dunkirk to let residents know the project was coming. At the time, DOT officials anticipated a start date between this past winter and spring. Construction is expected to wrap up this coming winter.

Sanjyot Vaidya, Regional Design Engineer of the project, expressed optimism at the informational meeting two years ago that the closure would not last the rest of 2026. Vaidya said, “It’s always faster when we take the bridge down and build it at once, as opposed to building it in stages. The general overall disturbance is lesser to the traffic.”

The project will include slope protection and retaining walls for the bridge, as well as shoreline protection and stream realignment to limit erosion of the bridge. The shoulders of the bridge will be widened from three feet, as it is now, to eight feet. A paved parking area will also be provided for access to the creek, which is a popular fishing site.