Route 21 in Morrisville to be closed at night for overpass project
One of county’s busiest traffic corridors will be closed at night for several days to allow a contractor to erect beams for the new railroad overpass project on Route 19/21 in Morrisville.
The road will be closed at the bridge in Morrisville and detours in place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Oct. 28-30, and if necessary, the same hours Oct. 31, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Valerie Petersen said.
The project to replace the railroad overpass and the bridge over Ten Mile Creek has been ongoing for about the last year-and-a-half. Two-lane traffic has been maintained through the construction zone during that time.
However, the highway has to be closed to allow the contractor to set the beams, which will cover the whole expanse of the overpass.
“They are trying to accommodate people the best they can by doing it in the evening and at night,” Petersen said.
Separate detours will be marked for passenger vehicles and trucks.
Passenger vehicles will be detoured using Sugar Run Road and Porter Street around the affected area.
Trucks will follow another detour because of the difficulty they would have negotiating the sharp turn on Sugar Run Road, Petersen said.
The truck detour will use Interstate 79 and Route 19, between Ruff Creek and Waynesburg. Route 21 will be closed to westbound truck traffic at I-79 and to eastbound truck traffic at Route 19.
PennDOT is replacing the railroad overpass over the two-lane highway and the adjacent two-lane bridge, carrying traffic over Ten Mile Creek, with four-lane structures.
The $15.1 million project was originally scheduled to be completed in fall 2016. However, delays caused primarily by utility relocations have pushed the completion date back by about a year, PennDOT said earlier.
The contractor, Gulisek Construction, is building the new railroad overpass on the west side of the existing overpass.
Abutments for the overpass have been constructed and the area behind the abutments built up with earthen fill to accommodate new railroad tracks. The beams will span the area between the abutments.
Once this part of the railroad overpass is completed and trains can use the new tracks, the existing railroad overpass will be removed and the highway will be realigned to route traffic onto the new section of the bridge built earlier over Ten Mile Creek.
The existing bridge over the creek will then be demolished to allow room for the construction of the second half of the bridge. Work on the railroad overpass also will be completed to allow trains to use the original rail alignment.
The project is part of a plan to alleviate traffic bottlenecks in the Morrisville corridor.