North Buffalo Township Bridge Closed Until October
A North Buffalo Township bridge will be closed for reconstruction until the end of the construction season.
PennDOT officials announced the closure of the Freeport Road Bridge (State Route 3017) over Glade Run Monday.
Built in 1922, the bridge carries more than 2100 vehicles a day.
The work will be performed by C.H. & D. Construction, and had originally been planned to start last week.
Those plans were delayed while utility relocation was completed.
Freeport Road traffic will detour to State Route 422 and Glade Run Road or State Route 3007.
The bridge replacement is part of the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project, a Public-Private Partnership (P3) between PennDOT and Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners
(PWKP) under which PWKP will finance, design, replace and maintain the bridges for
25 years.
As part of PWKP, Walsh/Granite JV will oversee construction. The P3 approach is said to allow PennDOT to replace the bridges more quickly while achieving significant savings and minimizing impact on motorists.
Other P3 projects began at the end of July, when on July 27, officials restricted the State Route 1039 bridge in Cowanshannock Township from two lanes to one. July 31, the Bryan Road crossing over the south fork of Pine Creek - also in Cownanshannock Township - closed for reconstruction until mid-September.
Nearly 60 bridges are to even be completed this summer. That might include four in Armstrong.
All 558 bridges must be replaced before 2018.
The average project cost per bridge for design, construction and maintenance is $1.6 million.
Local News | KP NewsDesk August 12, 2015
