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BRIAN TEDDER

Workers raise the bike path bridge across Main Street Sunday. The bridge is hoped to be usable by June.

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BRIAN TEDDER

Workers prepare to raise one side of the bike path bridge across Main St. Sunday in Northampton.

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BRIAN TEDDER

The first end of the bike path bridge is positioned after being raised from Main Street Sunday in Northampton.

NORTHAMPTON - Wayne Feiden and his 12-year-old daughter, Lisa, were the first people to walk on the new pedestrian bridge after it was installed over Main Street Sunday.

That seems fitting. Feiden, the city's director of planning and development, has been working on the project since about the time Lisa was born. Sunday's event marked a major step in linking the city's bikepaths into a coherent whole, he said.

"Our goal is to have bikepaths available so that 80 percent of the population lives within a half-mile of one," Feiden said.

Starting around 8 a.m. Sunday, a pair of cranes lowered two pieces of the 93-foot-long pedestrian bridge over Main Street. Bikepaths are currently under construction on both sides.

The metal bridge with a wood deck is 14.5 feet high and is parallel to the railroad trestle crossing Main Street. The contractor, Bruschi Bros. of Ludlow, will build approaches on each side, and the bridge should be usable by June, Feiden said.

Police officers detoured traffic on Main Street on Sunday morning. This time period was chosen as "the least inconvenient time to complete this important work," said MassHighway Commissioner Luisa Palewonsky.

A crowd of about 20 people watched as the cranes lowered the bridge into place, Feiden said.

The goal is to have a trail system that connects Belchertown to the Norwottuck Rail Trail to the Leeds section of Northampton. An even bigger goal is to have trails from Boston to New Haven, with Northampton the midpoint, Feiden said.

The 10-foot-wide Northampton bikepath has been used primarily for recreation, he said. The connection will make it more attractive to people commuting by bicycle, he said.

A second, smaller bridge is scheduled to be installed over North Street next Sunday morning. Cranes will be used to install this 23-foot-long bridge, and police will detour traffic.

The bridges are part of a $5 million project that will create a 2-mile trail through downtown Northampton, connecting to the bike trail on King Street.