OLD FORGE - Ann Monacelli pulled back the curtains and stared out her living room window at the decades-old bridge, pockmarked and cracked.
"It needs to be done," said the Old Forge woman, who has lived at 1107 S. Main St., just 20 yards or so from the bridge, for more than 50 years. "It's going to be an inconvenience, but it needs to be taken care of before something bad happens."
Starting Monday, contract workers from Deblin Inc. of Mechanicsburg will begin work on a project to replace the Main Street Bridge, which runs over the Lackawanna River in Old Forge, state Department of Transportation spokesman Mike Taluto said.
The estimated $3.7 million project is expected to shut down the bridge for one year.
"It was a planned project, one we have had our eye on for years," he said. "We will replace everything, from the deck to substructure."
Built in 1940, the bridge was No. 5 on a list of most structurally deficient bridges and overpasses in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area that carry at least 5,000 vehicles per day in a November 2010 report prepared by TRIP, a national transportation research group based in Washington, D.C.
On a scale of one to nine - with lower scores indicating a greater level of deficiency - the bridge's substructure received a grade of five, while the bridge's deck and super-structure received a grade of three, according to the report.
PennDOT has announced two detours - one for cars and another for trucks - to accommodate the roughly 8,100 vehicles that travel the bridge per day.
The car detour takes traffic heading south on Main Street left onto Bridge Street, then onto Lonesome Road and back to Main Street - an additional distance of four-tenths of a mile, Mr. Taluto said.
The detour for vehicles more than 11.5 feet tall is potentially longer.
While heading south on Main Street, those drivers should turn left onto Moosic Road, then right onto Third Street, right onto Route 11, right onto McAlpine Street and then back to Main Street, Mr. Taluto said. Drivers heading in the opposite direction should follow the steps in the reverse order.
"We tried to make this as little of an inconvenience as possible," he said.
While Ms. Monacelli said she welcomes the construction, Jack Schieber, the owner of Jetz Car Wash on Main Street, said he is concerned the closure will hurt business.
"We are about two years in and are still getting our feet wet," Mr. Schieber said. "Hopefully, the customers will continue to come, but this cuts off a lot of traffic."
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