Sewickley Bridge will close 24 days for preservation work

On the recommendation of the contractor rehabilitating the Sewickley Bridge, the bridge between Moon and Sewickley will be closed for 24 straight days beginning July 17 to limit weekend closures of the structure.

Swank Construction told the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation it could complete the work more efficiently by doing the work all at one time and the department agreed, spokesman Steve Cowan said. The $3.7 million project had called for a 14-day closure with four additional weekend closures, but the extra weekends will be eliminated by working straight through, Mr. Cowan said.

The change will eliminate a lot of time crews would have spent setting up or taking down safety barriers for the work.

“They thought they could get a better product and it would be less burdensome to the pubic this way,” he said.

Continuing low traffic on area roads because of the COVID-19 pandemic also makes it less disruptive to close the bridge on weekdays, Mr. Cowan said.

“That definitely was a part of their proposal,” he said. “We’re still a month out, so we’ll have to see what happens, but we don’t think we’ll be back to full traffic by then.”

The project involves renovating the span’s deck overlay and replacing the bearing and deck joints.

When the bridge isn’t completely closed, it will have single-lane alternating traffic from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. through November. About 20,000 vehicles a day use the bridge across the Ohio River that connects Routes 51 and 65.