HOPE - Traffic will be detoured onto the Highway 200 business loop for 35 days so the bridge over the BNSF Railway can be rehabilitated, according to the Idaho Transportation Department.

The work is scheduled to start after the Labor Day holiday and continue through mid-October.

The top layer of the bridge, which also carries traffic over the Hope boat basin, will be scoured off and replaced with a new concrete surface. Expansion joints in the span will also be repaired.

Westway Construction of Airway Heights, Wash., emerged as the apparent low bidder last month for the $1.3 million bridge improvement project.

To accommodate the flow of traffic through the cities of Hope and East Hope, the detour route's road surface will be improved and striped.