Starting Tuesday at 7 a.m., some Saratoga County residents will have to find alternate ways of getting to work and school because the New York State Department of Transportation is replacing the Route 9P Bridge over Saratoga Lake. Our C.J. Spang has more.

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"It's lived a long life, a good life, it served this area well," said Peter Van Keuren of the Department of Transportation. "And it's time to replace it with a new bridge."

Gone is the 87-year-old steel truss bridge as construction crews make way for a new $8.6 million composite girder bridge.

"Over the past few years we've had to maintain it because we've seen some of that age, what age can do to steel and concrete," said Van Keuren. "And it's really more effective for us right now to replace the bridge all together."

The Department of Transportation says the new bridge will be safer, wider and more pedestrian friendly, but won't be completed until Memorial Day weekend of next year which will cause headaches for residents and businesses alike.

"It has to be done, it's about time it got done," said Walter Gurren, who lives near the bridge. "And I'm looking forward to the new beautiful bridge, from the pictures of it, it looks like a beautiful bridge and this one really isn't wide enough for traffic both ways with the wider trucks and cars we have nowadays."

How the project will affect business depends on the type of business and which side of the bridge it's on. While business owners wouldn't talk to us on camera, the consensus is that things are going to be very tough for those on the south side toward the Town of Saratoga.

"The concerns we're hearing about closing this bridge are certainly understandable, but that doesn't change the fact that the bridge does have to be replaced," said Van Keuren. "And the most safe and the most efficient way for us to replace a structure like this it to close it all together."

For more information, visit www.nysdot.gov/portal/page/portal/regional-offices/region1/projects/route-9p.