NORTH SEWICKLEY, Pa. — After nearly a month of lane closures, PennDOT announced Friday that the bridge carrying Route 65 over Connoquenessing Creek will close.
“They’ve been working with us, so it hasn’t hindered us too, too much; some days a little differently than others, but for the most part we’ve been plugging along,” said Mike Hogue, General Sales Manager at Meyer’s RV, which is on the Ellwood City side of the bridge.
PennDOT will demolish the current bridge and replace it with a new bridge, piece by piece. The closure and detour will start at 6 a.m. Monday, September 21, with plans to reopen at 6 a.m. Saturday, October 24.
It’s a busy bridge, with homes and businesses on both sides.
Hogue said they are rolling with the punches, but he is worried about the impact it might have on business and getting RVs to the shop.
“We’re going to have to utilize our additional overflow lot down the street, which helped the drivers, but then there are times that we have bigger fifth wheels that get towed in with a regular truck,” Hogue said. “So it’s just going to be a matter of getting it through, and we have some space for that, but it’s going to be challenging on the front side of that.”
The timing depends on the weather. Hogue is worried rain could delay the work, causing the closure to be longer than 33 days, especially if the creek floods.
“I’ve been here for 15 years and seen a good bit of flooding,” he said. “So yeah, that’s where we’ll have concerns if we get any really big rainstorms.”
PennDOT has posted the following detours.
Car detour
- South of the closure
- From Route 65 take Chapel Drive
- Turn left onto Celia Road
- Turn left onto Shadyrest Road
- Turn left onto Route 288
- Continue to intersection with Route 65/River Road
- End detour
- North of the closure
- Same detour in the opposite direction
Truck detour
- Trucks from south of the closure to north of the closure
- From northbound Route 65, turn left onto Route 588
- Turn right onto the Eastvale Bridge and cross over the Beaver River
- Turn right onto north Route 18
- Turn right onto eastbound Route 351
- Turn left to continue on eastbound Route 351
- Turn left onto Fifth Street
- End detour at intersection with Route 65/Route 288
- Trucks from north of the closure to south of the closure
- From Route 288 continue past southbound Route 65
- Turn left onto Fountain Avenue
- Turn left onto Fifth Street
- Turn right onto Spring Avenue
- Turn left onto 6th Street
- Turn right onto Beaver Avenue
- Turn left onto 8th Street
- Turn right onto Lawrence Avenue/westbound Route 351
- Turn right to stay on Route 351/Arthur Street
- Turn left onto southbound Route 18
- Turn left onto eastbound Route 588 across the Eastvale Bridge
- Continue to the intersection with Route 65
- End detour
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