Oct 19, 2015 2 min read

CARMICHAELS – The construction of the new Masontown Bridge, a project ongoing for the last three years, is nearing completion.

The bridge is expected to be finished Dec. 1. “That is the official completion date,” said Dominec Caruso, state Department of Transportation project manager.

Last week, PennDOT changed the traffic pattern to one lane on each side of the bridge. Before, traffic was confined to two lanes, one in each direction, on the side of the bridge that had been completed earlier, before the old bridge was demolished.

Traffic is now using the two outside lanes of the bridge to allow the contractor to complete work on the median and middle portion of the bridge, Caruso said.

Some paving work also will ave to be done on the roadways approaching the bridge before the project is completed, he said.

The bridge carries Route 21 over the Monongahela River between Monongahela Township, Greene County, and Masontown, Fayette County.

PennDOT awarded a $49.6 million contract in late 2011 to replace the old bridge to Brayman Construction Corp. of Saxonburg.

The project was to be completed late last year but was delayed primarily because of the lack of availability of a special barge-mounted crane, Caruso said.

The project involved replacing the old, two-lane, steel truss bridge with a new four-lane structure.

Replacing the bridge had been recommended by a 2000 transportation study that focused on improvements to the Route 21 corridor between Waynesburg and Uniontown.

The former bridge was constructed in the early 1920s and was dedicated as the “Inter-county Bridge” in 1925. The bridge, in more recent years, was considered “substandard” in width, being only 24-feet wide with no shoulder.

Brayman began construction of the new bridge in 2012. It first built a two lane bridge adjacent to the old bridge. Once that was completed, traffic was shifted to the new bridge and the old bridge was demolished.

The old Masontown bridge was demolished Sept. 28, 2013. Explosives were used to drop the steel superstructure into the river.

Once the old bridge and its piers were removed, construction of the second half of the bridge was begun.

Traffic has been maintained on the highway during construction, though there have been some instances during which temporary single-lane closures were necessary for construction. The only detour that was employed was on the day the old bridge was dropped into the river, Caruso said.