Mimi McCann ’13, Michael Smerconish ’14:
As PennDOT continues to renovate the St. David’s Road Bridge, faculty and students should anticipate delays in their travels to and from school through November of this year.
PennDOT has declared the bridge, last renovated in 1960, to be “structurally deficient.” Newtown Township representative Cynthia Pound said, “The bridge was deemed unsafe by engineers, so it has to be repaired.” About 6,500 vehicles cross the 202-year-old stone arch bridge daily.
The St. David’s Road Bridge is one of three faulty bridges in Newtown Township that are currently being fixed as part of a $1.3 million project. PennDOT expects to put $454,000 toward the construction on the St. David’s Road Bridge alone. Pound explained that because St. David’s Road is a state road, “some of [the renovations] will be paid for by the state and the rest will be paid for by the township.”
Michael Cuddy of TransSystems Engineering, the company employed to reconstruct the bridge, said that PennDOT originally hired his company to give the bridge a fresh “25-year life span.” However, after seeing the progress made thus far, Cuddy expects “the life span of the bridge will be longer.”
Among the several repairs being made to the bridge, Cuddy mentioned a necessary concrete reinforcement to both sides of the bridge as well as an extension and replacement of the guardrails. Unfortunately, though the restoration began on July 16th, PennDOT told Scholium that it does not expect the bridge to be complete until sometime in November.
Until then, St. David’s Road traffic is redirected to a detour that takes drivers down Darby Paoli Road, Goshen Road, and finally onto Route 252. However, a common concern being voiced by local residents is whether these detours will interfere with local traffic patterns. Eileen Nelson, engineer for Newtown Township, questioned PennDOT, “What about the impact of cut-through traffic on the local roads?” Nelson and others hope that PennDOT will monitor the consequences of the construction and act accordingly. At this point in time, Paul Schultes, PennDOT project manager, deems this a “wait-and-see-then-act-quickly” type of situation. The impact of the construction and the detour’s efficiency will be tested in the opening weeks of the school year as students and teachers hurry to get to school on time.
The effects of the construction will vary depending on students’ locations, in some cases causing no inconvenience whatsoever. For others, however, the road closing may result in delays. Sydney Francis ’13, who lives in between Episcopal and the bridge, explained, “For me, it will be really easy to get to school because there won’t be any traffic at all, but it adds an extra ten minutes to my trip anytime I want to go the other way.” However, Francis recognizes the future benefits of PennDOT’s nearly half-a-million dollar venture. “It will be good in the long run because the bridge is about 200 years old and reparations will make it more efficient, and traffic will hopefully run more smoothly.”