More than 500 bridges in Pa. to be replaced

More than 500 of Pennsylvania’s worst bridges will be replaced under an innovative program that uses a private consortium to finance, design and build the bridges and then maintain them for 25 years.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation on Monday released the final list of 558 state bridges in the Rapid Bridge Replacement Public-Private Partnership, including 53 in Allegheny County.

Replacing the structures using conventional contract procedures would have taken eight to 12 years; the partnership will compress the schedule to four years, with virtually all work expected to be completed by the summer of 2018, PennDOT Secretary Barry Schoch said.

“We believe we’re going to be able to deliver these at a much lower cost and in a much smaller time frame,” he said at a briefing in Harrisburg.

Most of the new bridges will have similar designs and construction standards, which PennDOT hopes will produce cost savings. Typically, the department pays for design and construction of bridges one at a time.

A recent pilot project in which several locally owned smaller bridges in three counties were “bundled” into a single contract produced savings of 30 to 40 percent on design and construction costs, Mr. Schoch said.

The bridges to be replaced in Allegheny County are generally smaller ones, many of which range in length from 20 to 40 feet.

Combined, the 53 bridges carry more than 250,000 vehicles on a typical day.

All of the bridges in the state program are rated structurally deficient, meaning at least one component is in an advanced state of deterioration. The term does not mean the bridges are unsafe. Pennsylvania owns about 4,100 such bridges, down from 6,000 several years ago but still the most in the U.S.

Mr. Schoch said the department studied about 2,000 bridges before deciding which ones would be replaced in the partnership.

Four consortiums of private companies, including some of the heaviest hitters in the engineering, construction and financial sectors, have been invited to submit bids by Sept. 29.

The state expects to choose the winner in October and construction will begin next year.

The contractor will have to work fast — it will be allowed to close single-span bridges for no more than 60 days and multiple-span bridges for no more than 110 days, said Bryan Kendro, director of the state’s Public Private Partnerships Office.

Although the contract value may exceed $100 million per year, the project probably will consume 5 percent or less of PennDOT’s annual budget for road and bridge work, Mr. Schoch said.

“We’re trying to stress that this is a sliver of our program. Yes, it’s a big contract,” he said.

Source: Post Gazette