Ohiopyle in business despite road work
OHIOPYLE — The outdoor recreation season opened unofficially two weeks ago in this storybook-style borough, and the state park that surrounds it, with a COVID-19-delayed road construction project five weeks from completion. How that has affected this Fayette County jewel depends on who’s talking.
For Pam Kruse, a borough councilwoman and owner of Falls Market, the torn-up street and sidewalk outside her door at the town’s entrance is “a horrible mess” that has caused her to put her business up for sale. The main bridge into town, less than
50 yards away, is still limited to one lane of alternating traffic, and two blocks of Main Street have oneway traffic as Plum Construction rushes to finish after work was shut down across the state due to the virus.
“We can’t get anybody to come into the store,” Ms. Kruse said Thursday as she stood on the deck at the front of the market watching workers below her. “They’ve made it difficult to even get in.
“We were already suffering from COVID-19. Now, we’re just taking another beating.”
Elizabeth McCarty Bryington, borough council president and general manager of Laurel Highlands Outdoor Center, said that’s way too negative and not helping the perception of the situation. The Memorial Day weekend had large crowds of people enjoying the area, she said.
“We’re actually driving people away,” she said. “You’re putting that notion in people’s head that they shouldn’t come here.
“The construction is what it is, and we have to deal with it. [The project] has to be finished. We still have tons of people coming.”
Rob Joseph, owner of Ohiopyle Bakery and Sandwich Shoppe and neighboring Paddlers Pizza, said he does his best to stay above all of the discussion. As three groups ate lunch on the deck and workers installed sewer lines below to block his Main Street entrance, he said the work hasn’t caused him to miss one day of business.
“When they finish, it will be better than it was,” Mr. Joseph said. “I say celebrate when it’s done. Don’t complain about it while it’s happening.”
Ken Bisbee, park manager for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said construction hasn’t kept visitors away from the park. Numbers for March and April showed more than double the number of visitors for the previous year, he said, and May was just as busy.
A new face
The two-year project is designed to put a new face on the borough and park: refurbishing the Route 381 bridge over the Youghiogheny Bridge entering town; consolidating the main parking lot across from the visitors’ center with a pedestrian tunnel under the highway and relocating Sugarloaf Road closer to the river outfitting companies; moving bike lanes off the road onto park land closer to the river; and paving the road.
The plan involved working between Labor Day and Memorial Day, when the park and borough are less busy, but the pandemic changed that. PennDOT spokesman Jay Ofsanik said 98% of the work should be finished by July 4, including the bridge, highway, bike lanes and stairs to supplement the serpentine sidewalks to the pedestrian tunnel.
The agency has been satisfied with Plum Contracting’s work and pushed so that the project was one of the first resumed in the state after the pandemic restrictions were lifted.
“We knew the importance of this project to the area and the importance of this project to the park,” Mr. Ofsanik said. “We did everything we could to get this project restarted as soon as we could.
“It’s going to be a real improvement for the park when it’s finished.”
Ken Bisbee, park manager for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said construction hasn’t kept visitors away from the park. Numbers for March and April showed more than double the number of visitors for the previous year, he said, and May was just as busy.
Mr. Bisbee had nothing but kind words for PennDOT and construction crews, who he said have been immediately responsive to every concern the park has raised.
“Our numbers are way up,” he said. “People are finding their way here.
The project’s going to be really nice when it’s done.”
Taking a knee
To Jim Greenbaum, general manager of White Water Adventures who next week will close his rafting outfitter for the season, the construction is less a problem than the pandemic. There are plenty of visitors to the park, he said, but few of them want to raft, and those who do create costly cleaning problems for the companies because life jackets must be out of service for three days for cleaning.
“Our numbers before the virus were projecting some of our best numbers in years,” he said. “Now, we’ve looked at that as a non-win situation for this year. Four rafting companies running four trips a day isn’t going to make it.”
So for this year, Mr. Greenbaum is taking a knee, closing his business and referring customers and employees to competitors. He’ll use this season to renovate his facilities and be ready to celebrate the business’s 50th anniversary next year.
“Look how much money they’ve dropped into this place,” he said, referring to road improvements. “We expect when this project gets finished, it will bring Ohiopyle back. We’ll be ready.”
Not the same for Ms. Kruse, who hopes to sell her business by then. She said she’s tired of the anxiety that comes with watching potential customers stuck in bridge traffic for 45 minutes or more on weekends or visitors like 80-year-old Karol Smith, of Washington, Pa., navigating through the broken sidewalk to get to Falls Market for her birthday lunch.
“Thousands and thousands and thousands of people walked through there over the weekend,” Ms. Kruse said. “You remember this is supposed to be a pedestrian safety project?
“You just kind of reach a breaking point. It’s really sad. I don’t ever want to go through this again.”
Mr. Joseph takes the opposite approach.
“This town is still open. Come back and enjoy it.”