Bridge work takes wrong
turn, delayed two weeks
Work to replace part of the bridge that connects the city to Moosic Street lasted all of seven hours Monday and will not start again for at least two weeks.
At 9 a.m., state Department of Transportation officials closed the Cedar Avenue entrance ramp to the Central Scranton Expressway so contractors could continue repair work on the Moosic Street Bridge.
At 4 p.m., officials reopened the entrance ramp after realizing signs warning drivers coming from downtown that the road was closed were inadequate.
Officials changed course once they saw drivers coming from downtown attempt to make a left turn onto the ramp - then reverse or U-turn back onto the busy city strreet upon realizing the ramp was closed.
"I stood here for 10 minutes and I probably saw seven cars get stuck there," said PennDOT spokesman James May. "Some would stop in the middle of the intersection. ... Some would try to make the U-turn, some would just back onto the road."
Mr. May said though there were enough signs notifying drivers heading north on Cedar Avenue, there were not enough warning drivers coming from downtown, who attempted to make left turns onto the ramp.
Construction on that phase of the more than $1 million project will be delayed at least two weeks as officials must complete a traffic engineering study and print more signs before new ones can be posted, Mr. May said.
It is unclear how the delay will affect the project's completion date, which is slated for the end of October.
The replacement work became necessary when a truck driver hit the bridge's underside while hauling a rented excavator on Nov. 2. The bridge connecting Moosic and Spruce streets has been closed since as crews from Fahs Construction Group, Binghamton, N.Y., replace the bridge's deck, cables and concrete beams.
"The only reason we are closing this is because we don't want people going under the bridge while they are working on it," Mr. May said. "So they are just not going to work on the bridge until they can get this mess all cleared up."
Contact the writer: miorfino@timesshamrock.com, @miorfinoTT on Twitter