Drivers can expect a smoother ride on locally owned bridges and rural and low-volume roads across the four-county region in the coming months as part of a multimillion-dollar investment.
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is planning to repair more locally owned bridges and improve more than 1,100 miles of rural and low-volume roadway through multi-year investments in the area and across the state, something state Rep. Martin Causer, R-Turtlepoint, indicated is a long-time coming.
“It’s encouraging to finally see a commitment to investing in our rural roads,” he told The Era on Monday, the same day Gov. Tom Wolf made the announcement.
PennDOT staff in the central and regional offices will pinpoint roads and bridges to be included in the programs, said Erin Waters-Trasatt, press secretary for PennDOT.
“We have significant needs on low-volume roadways across the state, especially in areas seeing high traffic from heavy hauling industries,” she said.
All told, 43.8 percent of locally owned bridges are considered structurally deficient in Cameron County; 28.6 percent in Elk County; 43 percent in McKean County; and 39.5 percent in Potter County.
PennDOT is putting in place five-year investment programs, including a Rural Commercial Routes program that would improve low-volume roads through industry partnerships and with cost-effective treatments like Recycled Asphalt Paving; and rehabilitating or replacing at least 85 municipally owned bridges over five years.
“These investments build on the Road Maintenance and Preservation Program [Road MaP] that we started last year to increase effort on not only major routes, but also lower traffic roadways across the state,” Wolf said. “We will leverage partnerships with local governments and private industry to bring targeted and much-needed improvements.”
The Rural Commercial Routes program would invest $200 million over the five-year period on roadways seeing, on average, fewer than 3,000 vehicles daily. More than 360 miles are being earmarked to be improved in 2018-19, including roadways posted with weight restrictions as well as an estimated 260 miles to be improved with lower-cost pavement treatments such as RAP.
The program would also expand cost-sharing partnerships with heavy hauling industries to improve roadways not originally designed to handle heavy vehicles, many of which are posted with weight restrictions.
The administration is also expanding its concentration on locally owned bridges by rehabilitating or replacing 85 to 100 bridges over five years. The $50 million program would add bridges to the department’s 12th Year Transportation Program.
“Many businesses rely on our rural roadways to transport their products,” PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards said. “These investments will improve travel not only for these industries, but also residents.”
Causer said that last fall, he met with PennDOT’s Deputy Secretary for Highway Administration George McAuley to talk about concerns and frustrations many individuals have shared concerning local roads.
“I have shared those same concerns during regular meetings with District 2 Executive Karen Michael. While progress has been made on our roadways, more needs to be done, and I am hopeful this additional investment will make a difference,” he said.
The upcoming investment accompanies other improvements completed and underway across Pennsylvania. PennDOT has put out 684 bridge contracts and roughly 1,400 contracts for roadway and other improvement projects worth about $7.5 billion since January 2015.
