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ASK SKIP: Oh, the Gay St. Bridge is coming down, doo-dah, doo-dah
We’ve received several questions about the Gay St. Bridge, of which this is representative:
I live near the Gay Street Bridge and am curious: Do you know when it's currently slated to be torn down? I knew it was generally set to happen in late Jan/early Feb. Thanks for your feedback.
We know no firm date as yet. Staff writer Laurie Perini reported on January 30 a revised estimate of “mid-March to mid-April” from PennDOT spokesman Gene Blaum. But we do know what we’ll be seeing even before it goes down. The two railroad trestles that span North Main St. will be jacked up – Blaum’s “conservative estimate,” Perini reported, was that jacking would take two weeks – to enable emergency vehicles access to the North Side. North Main will be closed for the duration of that process. We’ll also be seeing project notification signs at each end of the bridge, two to four weeks prior to its closing. The entire demolition and reconstruction project will take approximately two years.
Posted by
Skip Lawerence
I live near the Gay Street Bridge and am curious: Do you know when it's currently slated to be torn down? I knew it was generally set to happen in late Jan/early Feb. Thanks for your feedback.
We know no firm date as yet. Staff writer Laurie Perini reported on January 30 a revised estimate of “mid-March to mid-April” from PennDOT spokesman Gene Blaum. But we do know what we’ll be seeing even before it goes down. The two railroad trestles that span North Main St. will be jacked up – Blaum’s “conservative estimate,” Perini reported, was that jacking would take two weeks – to enable emergency vehicles access to the North Side. North Main will be closed for the duration of that process. We’ll also be seeing project notification signs at each end of the bridge, two to four weeks prior to its closing. The entire demolition and reconstruction project will take approximately two years.
Posted by
Skip Lawerence
posted by The Phoenix Files at
9:13 AM
5 Comments:
Any idea when the trestles work is set to begin (or has it already)?
I still can't figure out why it takes 2 years to build a bridge...
Does anyone know why exactly they are raising the trestle and not taking it down? I know The Cassidy Dream Liner will be departing and using that bridge but it can't be sturdy enough for an active train line.
Spoons is right - if that train project ever gets off the ground, it will just end up being a big boondoggle.
If they could just remove the trestle, we wouldn't even need a big bridge. Just truck in some fill and extend High St. down the hill, then build another "low" bridge over the creek like the other bridge.
In addition to being cheaper and faster, you could branch off roads into any future development on the old steel site land.
Supposedly, PennDot wanted the cheapest option to make sure that the North Side had access to the ladder truck.
The options were:
1) Rent a ladder truck and house it on the North Side (turned down as Friendship Fire Company didn't have anyplace to store said ladder truck)
2) Raise the bridge trestle (Cheap and quick for PennDot)
3) Give the Borough the okay to have a demolition company remove the trestle for the scrap value. (Cheapest all around.)
Since the Borough refused Option #3 because Cassidy wants the trestle (has he walked through the Steel Property lately? The infrastructure is crumbling away on that rail line and based on the recent tree removals at key areas, it appears that other persons are noticing the crumbling also), PennDot went with their cheapest option, which was #2.
Why do I have the answers instead of Skip?
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