BRIDGE REBUILD STARTING SOON
Walnut Street Bridge to be closed from June to next summer or fall
“Our goal is to start construction shortly after June 15.” — Kevin Spencer, Bucks County’s director of operations
Work on the long-awaited Walnut Street bridge replacement is expected to start in about three months.
Requests for bids from contractors interested in doing the work will go out in late March or early April, Kevin Spencer, Bucks County’s director of operations, said. The county owns the bridge.
“Our goal is to start construction shortly after June 15,” Spencer said.
The work cannot begin before that date because the East Branch of the Perkiomen Creek, which the bridge crosses, is rated a high-quality waterway and trout may be active in the creek during the spring, so there are restrictions that do not allow the work to start before June 15, he said.
“Our engineering has been complete for many years now,” Spencer said.
Initial plans to rebuild the bridge go back to about 2000, he said.
“It had been tied up for many years, basically for permitting,” he said.
In 2014, the sidewalk portion of the bridge was temporarily closed for repairs after a routine inspection found structural problems. The roadway, which was found to still be structurally sound, re-
mained open to drivers during those repairs to the pedestrian area.
“The bridge, itself, is still safe for traffic,” Spencer said.
There are structural deficiencies, however, he said.
“The bridge was originally built in 1907. It was reconstructed in 1970,” he said.
The reinforced concrete arch bridge has three spans and is 209 feet long, he said.
The new bridge will be much the same, but will look “slightly different,” he said.
“There won’t be arches like now,” Spencer said. “The bridge ’ll be a little wider.”
With the additional width, there will be sidewalks on both sides of the bridge, he said. Intersection improvements will also be done, he said.
The bridge work will take two construction seasons, so the bridge will be closed until the job is completed in the summer or fall of next year, Spencer said.
It’s not physically possible to work on one side of the bridge at a time and leave the other side open for traffic, he said.
One of the reasons for that is because the new bridge will be better aligned with the intersection of Constitution and Walnut streets, Perkasie Borough Manager Andrea Coaxum said.
“That bridge has to be taken out and then the new bridge reconstructed,” she said.
“There will be detours,” Coaxum said. “Obviously people won’t be able to get over the bridge; however, residents will be able to access all the businesses in the area.”
A recent change to use Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s retro reimbursement process for funding the job is helping expedite the project, Spencer said.
Under that process, the county will pay for the work, then be reimbursed 80 percent of the project costs by PennDOT when everything is completed, he said. The total project costs are expected to be between $3 million and $3.5 million, he said.
Perkasie will pay to install new lighting for the bridge, Coaxum said.