Kenmawr Bridge will be replaced next year

Span connects Rankin and Swissvale boroughs

After years of legal wrangling and design, the long-deficient Kenmawr Bridge that connects Rankin and Swissvale is scheduled to be replaced next year.

The 108-year-old bridge is a small but key connection linking the Parkway East with the Monongahela Valley in general and Kennywood Park in West Mifflin specifically. It is so important that Pennsylvania Department of Transportation plans call for building a temporary bridge beside it to maintain traffic on South Braddock Avenue while the new bridge is built.

Responsibility for the bridge has been divided among the two financially struggling municipalities and Norfolk Southern, which owns the railroad tracks under the bridge. After years disagreements over who should pay for improvements that eventually involved the state Public Utility Commission, PennDOT will build the new bridge using a combination of federal, state, railroad and Port Authority funds for the project expected to cost $10.5 million.

Once the new structure is built, Allegheny County will take responsibility for its upkeep.

A Port Authority committee last week recommended the full board approve contributing up to $1.46 million to the project to pay for the bridge to be wider so that buses from the Martin Luther King Jr. East Busway can make right turns from the busway to the bridge and longer so that it can accommodate the proposed extension of the busway to East Pittsburgh.

The existing bridge, which has had its sidewalks closed since

2013, has a 12-ton weight limit that prohibits large trucks and buses from using it.

The weight limit had been 6 tons until the railroad did some repairs to increase its capacity.

Plans call for the narrow bridge to be expanded with extra-wide, 14-foot lanes in each direction with sidewalks 6 feet wide on each side. That will allow Port Authority buses from the East Busway to turn onto the bridge, said Greg O’Hare, the authority’s assistant engineer for capital projects.

The length of the bridge also will be increased from one span that is 73 feet long to two spans a total of 121 feet long. That would allow the authority to proceed with a nine-year, $549 million proposal released last fall to extend the busway without additional changes to the bridge, although that project isn’t a priority right now.

Additionally, plans call for raising the bridge by about 3 feet to allow doublestacked railroad cars to pass under it. South Braddock Avenue on both sides of the bridge, as well as several side streets, also will undergo improvements.

PennDOT expects to award a contract for the project by the end of the year.

Mr. O’Hare said there likely will be two periods during the five-month project when all traffic will be detoured temporarily.

Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.

John Heller/Post-Gazette The 108-year-old Kenmawr bridge, which connects Rankin and Swissvale, had its weight limit increased from 6 tons to 12 tons after repairs were made to increase its capacity, but buses and large trucks cannot use it. The bridge will be replaced next year.