Charleroi bridge project to temporarily close Route 88
This deteriorating bridge at the Charleroi-Speers line is scheduled for replacement in 2018.
Jeff Rossi of Walsh Granite in Pittsburgh and Rachel D. Duda of the state Department of Transportation discuss the detour for a bridge replacement project in Charleroi.
CHARLEROI – A main artery in and out of Charleroi will be closed to traffic for two months next year to allow for the replacement of a deteriorating bridge.
Motorists using Route 88 likely will be detoured to Interstate 70 and Twilight Hollow Road to get around the bridge project, which is scheduled to begin in spring 2018, planners said Tuesday at a public meeting on the project in Charleroi Borough Building. The detour will amount to about a four-mile inconvenience for motorists.
“The bridge needs to be fixed, and eight weeks is not too long for it to be closed,” said Rachel D. Duda, an assistant district executive for design at the state Department of Transportation.
A meeting with business owners and public officials on the project also was held Tuesday, at which time it was determined they preferred the closing of the bridge rather than PennDOT using a temporary, one-lane crossing at the project site at the Speers-Charleroi line.
The 67-foot, structurally deficient bridge, which carries traffic over Maple Creek, is among 83 in the district that are under contract to be replaced by Walsh Granite of Pittsburgh, Duda said. The company also must maintain the Charleroi span for 25 years under the terms of the contract.
The concrete bridge in Charleroi will not have a sidewalk, but rather a widened berm for pedestrians to use, Duda said.
“People didn’t seem to mind the detour,” said Walsh spokesman Jeff Rossi.
The project is still in the design phase.
“There are a lot of utilities that have to be relocated,” Rossi said.
The cost of the bridge was not immediately known Tuesday because it’s included in a multimillion-dollar investment to rapidly replace old bridges in the state, Duda said.