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Months Of Work And Detours Later, Officials Optimistic Valley Forge Road Bridge Will Reopen Ahead Of Schedule

By Jim Melwert

SCHUYLKILL TOWNSHIP, Pa. (CBS) --- It's been a frustrating detour for many residents, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel for the Valley Forge Road bridge closure between Phoenixville and Valley Forge.

PennDOT officials say they're optimistic the bridge will be opened before their target date of the end of November.

There's no set date for the re-opening just yet, but PennDOT spokesman Gene Blaum says work is progressing on the Valley Forge Road bridge over the Pickering Creek.

"We got the bridge deck poured, that was a major milestone for this project, now it's just a matter of getting all the other structural elements on the bridge," he says.

Valley Forge Road Bridge September
Progress on the Valley Forge Road bridge, photo taken September 6th, 2015. (credit cbs

Blaum says they understand the closure is a major inconvenience, and they appreciate everyone's patience, but he says this bridge replacement has not been an easy project.

"It was in very poor condition, there was significant rust on the beams that were removed and replaced," he says. "It's a very confined work area, you have the aqua-dam right next to the bridge, so the contractor's working in a very confined location."

 

Once the pier beams were removed, the construction started moving ahead.

"The contractor's poured the new concrete deck for the bridge," Blaum says, "they're now going to start building the bridge walls and the parapets along side it."

valley forge road bridge
Valley Forge Road Bridge - Photo from May 30, 2015. credit cbs

During the time the bridge has been out of commission, the more-than-19,000 cars that use the bridge daily have been detoured onto heavily congested roads in an area with few alternatives.

Earlier this summer, PennDOT re-worked the deal with the contractor to move the target date up by a month, and while Blaum won't set an exact date, he says they expect to beat the current late-November deadline.

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