Norwich -- Beginning Thursday afternoon, bike riders will get a chance to try out dedicated lanes from Ledyard Bridge to the village in an experiment to be conducted while the state is repaving the roadway.

The bike lanes will be drawn more than 15 years after town officials and state transportation representatives began talking about whether to put bike lanes on the heavily traveled road to Hanover and to reduce travel lanes on the return trip to Norwich.

“I've been waiting for them to do this,” said Christian Durgin of Wilder, who rode his bike through Norwich yesterday on the way to a dental appointment in Thetford. “This is excellent.”

Meanwhile in Norwich, long lines of traffic crawled through the center of town, stopping for the flaggers, dump trucks and asphalt equipment that have moved into town this summer for the $2 million state paving job.

The state is repaving Route 10A -- Norwich's Main Street -- and also Church Street, River Road and Route 5 heading into Hartford, about 7 miles in all. Part of the project includes drawing bike lanes from the bridge into town and taking away one travel lane on the westbound side, heading into Norwich. The change will mean a wider space for bicycles westbound.

On the eastbound side, the lanes will be narrowed to accommodate the new bike lane.

If the experiment is deemed unsuccessful, the state will return the two vehicle lanes on the westbound side of the road, said John Zicconi, spokesman for the Agency of Transportation. A bike lane will remain there, he said, but not be as wide.

Zicconi said unsafe conditions for vehicle drivers or bicyclists, too much congestion or poor traffic flow will mean an end to the one-lane configuration. “If we see that there's a safety concern, we'll end it immediately,” he said. “We don’t have to see a crash for something to let us know something is unsafe.”

Hanover will also add bicycle logos and small arrows -- a design called a “sharrow”-- to a stretch of Lebanon Street, between Crosby and South Park streets. The sharrow, for “shared lane arrow,” is not a dedicated bike lane, but a sign configuration that warns drivers that bikers frequent that stretch of road.

The Norwich bike lanes, 5 feet wide, will be observed for the next four to six weeks. If state officials decide the bike lanes work, they will paint the lanes on the final layer of asphalt to be laid down later this year. The work will continue through early October.

“I'm hoping for the best,” said Norwich Selectwoman Sharon Racusin, who for a decade has walked and bicycled to work at DHMC from Norwich. “It'll be a good, healthy, safe change.”

Norwich town officials want residents to know about the new lanes, Town Manager Pete Webster said yesterday. And they'll want to hear from people using the road, too, he said.

“People need to be aware on Thursday and Friday that there is going to be a new lane configuration coming up from the bridge,” Webster said.

Norwich police officers will be on the road on Thursday watching traffic and bicycles, he added.

Road workers plan to draw the bicycle lanes on Thursday after the morning commute, said Chris Barker, the state project engineer on the job.

State transportation workers will also observe use of the Norwich bike lanes for the next two weeks, when no roadwork will take place near the lanes, Barker said. After that time, work may be done near the lanes, but bicycles will still be able to use them, he said.

It will be up to state officials to decide whether the bike lanes are a success, Zicconi said.

“We're all confident and somewhat holding our breath,” Webster said.

The state will consider information from its engineers at the site and will also want to hear from town officials, said Zicconi. He said residents with opinions on the bicycle lanes should contact Webster.

And, in Hanover, town officials also want to hear what users think of the Lebanon Street experiment, according to information from the town's Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee.

The bike lanes seem to have a lot of support in Norwich. In March, about 70 residents, most of them bike riders, turned out for a Selectboard meeting to show support for the bike lane experiment, which over the years has been called the “corridor project.”

The corridor project has been discussed since Ledyard Bridge was rebuilt in 1993 and has taken many different forms. Some blame the delay on town officials for not reaching agreement on the matter over the years and others say the state has consistently opposed reducing traffic to one lane on Route 10A.

But now, the only thing that could delay the addition of bike lanes is rain, said Barker. Asphalt won't adhere to the roadbed when the road is wet, so rainy days shut down the paving work, he said.

“As soon as the road gets wet, you're done,” Barker said.

Susan J. Boutwell can be reached at sboutwell@vnews.com or at (603) 727-3248.