In Monongahela Township, a $3 million bridge replacement project has entered the final design phase.

The project initially started in March 2015, according to Project Manager Brian Svesink, and it includes a pair of bridges in Mapletown. These bridges cross the Whiteley Creek on Mapletown Road.

“There are actually two bridges on the road that we are going to be replacing,” Svesnik said. “We’re going to overlay the entire road [with a new surface.]”

Because of light traffic in the area, the bridges do not require any other upgrades besides resurfacing.

“[We’re] just resurfacing the bridge, there shouldn’t be an increase in traffic flow,” Svesnik said. “The road is only like three-quarters of a mile long. There’s two businesses located on it and they don’t get very much traffic.”

By October, Svesnik said the project will be bid out, but until then, the final pieces will be put together for the contractors.

“What will be happing until October is we will be acquiring all the right away that we need for the project,” Svesnik said. “[Also] finishing up the design – like the road way and structure plans, getting environmental permits and basically putting together a big package for contractors to look at.”

With this project part of the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project ongoing across the state of Pennsylvania, the impending completion of the Litte Whiteley Creek Bridge replacement will be one more checkmark on a list of 558 bridges across the state.

These bridges were identified for the project based on repair costs, available finances and analysis of projects on bridges of similar disrepair in years previous.

The state-wide project began in 2012 when the state passed legislation enabling the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to acquire a public-private partnership. PennDOT was awarded with the project, along with a consortium of Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners, contractors trusted to handle construction..

Jeff Rossi, public information manager, said a majority of these bridges partnered with the state-wide project are in rural locations, the Little Whiteley Creek Bridge being one example.

“Most of these [bridges] are located in rural areas,” Rossi said. “All these bridges are coming to the end of their lifespan. They are still safe to drive across and everything, it’s just they are coming to the end of their useful [duration.]”

Across Greene County, Rossi said roughly 60 bridges have been identified to be a part of the replacement program, and they have intentions of repairing the 558 bridges by the end of 2018.

Rossi said they have experienced some delays, but they were not typically during the construction phase, rather during the planning process.

“We’ve had, from the beginning, a pretty aggressive schedule to get these [projects] done,” Rossi said. “A lot of the delays we’ve experienced is just trying to get utilities moved and getting right away from railroads is not an easy thing, so we [have] to juggle.”

Despite the varying degrees of delays the projects have experienced over the past few years, Svesnik said the Little Whiteley Creek Bridge project is on track to be completed on time.