HOPPER ROAD WILL REOPEN TO TRAFFIC TODAY

Principal Sydney Herbst noticed more children riding the bus to Clippard Elementary School recently while Hopper Road has been under construction.

But that could all change once the road reopens to traffic Friday morning."We are all very anxious," she said. Parents, teachers and bus drivers will be happy to travel across the new 120-foot three span bridge.

For the first few months of the school year they have been taking detours around road construction near the school. The Hopper Road bridge has been closed to traffic since May. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at the bridge, near the Mount Auburn Road intersection, at 11 a.m. today.

Herbst said routing traffic in and out on one small section of Hopper Road hasn't been as bad as it could have.

Last year traffic was horrible. With so many parents, buses and staff coming into the school parking lot at once, things can be congested, she said.

But the school added another driveway this summer so having the bridge closed has, in some ways, been an asset, Herbst said. It has allowed the school to develop a better traffic flow.

Funded by Federal Highway Administration, the bridge construction project cost $696,000 and included the new bridge, barrier curbs along the street and sidewalks, as well as some minor channel work over Cape La Croix Creek.

With the construction of the new bridge, people who use the city's Osage Trail for walking, jogging or bike riding will no longer have to cross Hopper and face traffic. Instead, the trail now proceeds under the bridge, as it does under Independence and William streets.