Route 248 work to finish in November
A view of the construction area on Route 248 near Palmerton. Work is expected to finish in November. BOB FORD/TIMES NEWS
A bridge project that has frustrated drivers traveling south of Palmerton will be completed in November, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The bridge carrying Route 248 over Norfolk Southern Rail lines has been under construction for some time.
A PennDOT contractor has been repairing the substructure and deck of the span, which was built in 1962. The cost of the project is approximately $1.1 million, and it is part of a larger contract to fix 13 bridges in Carbon, Schuylkill and Monroe counties over a three-year period, according to PennDOT.
Some drivers have complained about lane restrictions and the appearance that no one is working on the bridge.
PennDOT spokesman Sean Brown said crews are currently awaiting delivery of expansion dams which will be installed in the next two weeks. Expansion dams are the metal sections on each side of the bridge which allow the concrete to expand and contract with the weather.
However, Brown said, there are other days where it seems like no one is working on the bridge, but work is taking place out of drivers’ sight.
“There are days they have been working underneath the bridge that gives the appearance that the contractor is not working on the project,” Brown said.
Brown said that by mid-September, the contractor will complete work on one direction of the bridge. That involves paving and replacing the expansion dams.
Traffic will then be rerouted to the other side of the bridge, and the same process will take place on the other half.
The contractor for the project is Kriger Construction Inc., of Scranton, who won a $5.9 million contract to replace 13 bridges in the area — three in Carbon County, six in Monroe County and four in Schuylkill.
The project officially began in August 2016 and Brown said bridges are bid as a package because it is more efficient.
“We ‘bundle’ bridges in these contracts because much of the preventive maintenance work required on each bridge is similar and it does make both fiscal and time frame sense to package these together,” Brown said.
Comments
Same as on Rt. 209 in Franklin Twp., Kriger Construction Inc., of Scranton is utilizing the latest in modern construction technology which incorporates invisible workers using invisible machinery and tools, working at night when the rest of us are in bed.