Newport, R.I. — Commuters between Aquidneck Island and the East Bay will see more one-lane periods on the Mount Hope Bridge as the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority layers overnight work onto daytime restrictions.
According to the Newport Daily News roundup, RITBA now lists overnight jobs from late October into mid-November, with alternating lanes from 7 in the evening until 5 in the morning on weekdays after the contractor revised the calendar. Daytime alternating periods still run mid-morning to mid-afternoon Monday through Thursday and end earlier on Fridays.
A Portsmouth travel notice summarized elsewhere also described overnight shared-lane periods in the evening-to-dawn window plus daytime cutbacks, framing the effort as part of RITBA dehumidification work on the span.
Alternating means one of the two lanes stays open while traffic shares the other in turns, not a full bridge shutdown. The span is the Route 114 link from Bristol to Portsmouth and the East Bay approach onto Aquidneck Island.
Coverage recalled that RITBA leaders said last summer that lane cuts could last into 2027 and that overnight crews had been avoided then over safety worries, so the new night windows mark a change from that earlier stance.
Officials have called the bridge structurally safe and tied rough pavement to older deck slabs installed in the late 1980s that have begun to separate. RITBA updates weekly closure lists and urges drivers to check travel alerts before each trip.
For Newport County motorists, weekdays now mean one-lane conditions both midday and overnight through the active window. Weekend operations were not detailed in the Portsmouth advisory described in reporting.
Extra travel time is wise for Bristol-Portsmouth runs until the dehumidification schedule eases. Watch for flaggers and confirm the latest RITBA alert before morning and evening peaks.
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