Mansion House hill rock project to begin in spring

A rock slide mitigation project on the Mansion House Hill between Lehighton and Jim Thorpe is set to begin this spring.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation hosted a preconstruction conference Friday morning at its offices in Allentown.

“Our anticipated physical construction start date is in mid-April, pending some submissions that have to be made yet,” said Phil Carper, project manager for Road-Con Inc.

Road-Con, of West Chester, was the low bidder on the contract at $3.55 million.

In addition to rock slide mitigation, the work on Route 209 is slated to include roadway drainage improvements and other miscellaneous construction.

“We’re going to start work from the top of the mountain down,” Carper said.

“First and foremost, we’ll set traffic control. Then we’ll start the scaling operation and bringing rocks down. When the scaling operation gets out ahead, the drillers will come in behind for the rock anchors, and then the wire mesh will follow.”

Traffic control figures to be one of the major components of the project due to the significance of Route 209 for access to downtown Jim Thorpe.

Once construction starts, the northbound right lane on Route 209 will be shut down for the remainder of the project. All lanes, from the Bagel Bunch lot to the Highland Beverage lot, will be closed Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. with the exception of July 2-6 and some other holidays built into the contract such as the Friday and Monday surrounding Labor Day weekend. One lane in each direction will be open outside those hours, barring any unsafe conditions.

Ameritech Slope Contractors, one of the only companies in the country that handle this type of work, will perform the rock scaling operation.

“We’ll send guys up to get ahead on clearing the vegetation,” said Todd Reccord of Ameritech. “We plan on being there daily for a 7:30 a.m. safety meeting. When 8:31 a.m. hits, that first rock will hit the ground so we can make the most use of our time.”

Ameritech will have three crews of scalers, totaling nine men, who will rappel down on ropes with 4-foot pry bars, checking cracks along the way.

“Those bars can move a lot of rock,” Reccord said. “We won’t push overwhelming amounts down at a time as to not bust the road up. Once we clear a section and get approval from the engineer, we’ll move on down the hill. Everything coming down will be behind the barrier.”

A number of fracture zones need to be checked, officials said. All of the fractures will be investigated to determine whether or not the rock there needs to come down.

At least 500 rock anchors will be put in place, but the number could grow depending on what is discovered.

John Harmonosky, PennDOT assistant construction manager, said Road-Con has indicated they will remain active once construction starts.

“I like that I’m hearing that because Route 209 is the major ingress and egress to Jim Thorpe,” he said. “It’s a vital stretch of roadway.”

Though one lane northbound will open up at 3 p.m. on the weekdays, Harmonosky said he realizes the project will be a traffic inconvenience.

“That being said, this is an important project and it needs to be done,” he added.

Jim Thorpe Borough Manager Maureen Sterner asked if there were any provisions in the contract to put up signage regarding the use of Flagstaff Road as an alternate route.

“There will be a truck restriction plan for Flagstaff Road, and those signs will be up prior to construction,” Calvin Ulshafer of PennDOT said.

Sterner also said a paving project on Broadway in Jim Thorpe will likely have to be switched from daytime to nighttime work to avoid further traffic backlogs.

The project’s original completion date is listed as May 12, 2020.