State approves $87 million contract for section of Southern Beltway

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has taken another step forward on the next section of the Southern Beltway, a 13mile highway that will connect Route 22 to Interstate 79.

Thecommission on Tuesday approved an $87 million contract with Beaver Excavating Co., a site development and construction contractor based in Canton, Ohio, to build an 1.82-mile stretch of the highway. Construction of that section is scheduled to begin this fall andbe completed in the fall of 2019.

The section, designed to go from Reissing Road near McDonald to Route 50, includes four bridges and six culverts. Two of those bridges are massive undertakings, turnpike officials said, as they will carry, separately, eastbound and westbound lanes of Southern Beltway traffic over Route 50, the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway andMillers Run Road.

Despite it being shorter than some of the other sections that make up the Southern Beltway, it is expensive due to building the additional infrastructure, said

Matt Burd, a project manager with the Turnpike Commission.

Construction planners, for example, couldn’t directly connect the beltway with Route 50 due to a large hillside and a rail line.

“Although it would be more cost-effective, it wouldn’t be physically possible” to build an interchange, Mr. Burd said.

Independence Excavating of Cleveland has a $90.85 million contract to oversee a 4-mile segment between Quicksilver Road and Route 22 and Joseph B. Fay Co. of Tarentum has a $90.6 million contract for 3.2 miles between the Panhandle Trail and Reissing Road inCecil and North Fayette.

The contract represents progress in what will be the first new highway built in southwestern Pennsylvania in 20 years.

The current project, at $700 million, is so large that the turnpike commission broke it into eight pieces, each with its own general contractor and subcontractors. Turnpike officials said there are four more contracts to be awarded.