 Now the Veterans Memorial Bridge, just upstream, carries these routes between Somerset and Fall River.With the age of the bridge becoming a problem, as well as the rising costs of necessary upkeep and maintenance, talk began circulating about replacing the bridge as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s.Starting in 1983, plans were put in place to replace the bridge with a new, higher and wider span upriver, which would span from a proposed flyover intersection with Route 79 on the Fall River side, to a new access road through the former site of Slade's Ferry Park in Somerset.