Speers-Belle Vernon Bridge along I-70 to be preserved
BELLE VERNON – The state Department of Transportation will invest as much as $30 million to preserve the Speers-Belle Vernon Bridge along Interstate 70, with most of the work involving the application of new coats of paint to the massive steel span.
The work is expected to begin on the 63-year-old bridge in the spring and be completed by the fall of 2016, and it will take place during evening hours when it is less traveled, said Richard Kauffman, a consultant with SAI Consulting Engineers of Pittsburgh.
“It’s going to be a beautiful bridge when it’s done,” Kauffman said Thursday when PennDOT held a public meeting to display the plans in the Belle Vernon Municipal Building.
Belle Vernon Mayor Gerald Jackson said PennDOT also met that afternoon with local firefighters and paramedics over concerns about such issues as detours in the event of an accident during the project.
Jackson said two painters died in falls when the bridge was last painted in 1993.
He said PennDOT indicated it “will develop a plan to make sure we know what’s going on.”
PennDOT expects to award a contract to a company for the work in the spring, and it will be up to that business to determine when the span will be reduced to one lane in each direction for six weeks in order to repair and seal the concrete deck, Kauffman said.
“The deck is in pretty good shape,” he said, adding some of the steel on the 63-foot-long bridge will need to be repaired.
“It’s a big bridge,” he said.
The majority of the work will be completed from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday through Thursday due to the high volume of traffic crossing the bridge during the daylight hours.
Kauffman said 33,000 vehicle travel the span’s westbound lanes each day, while the eastbound lanes received about 21,000 vehicles a day. Twenty percent of the vehicles that cross the bridge over the Monongahela River are trucks.
PennDOT has yet to pick a new color for the bridge, which was last painted light blue.