$36M American Parkway Bridge, key Allentown artery, nearly complete

By November, drivers will be able to travel on one road from the east side of Allentown, a baseball throw from Coca-Cola Park, to the city’s bustling downtown.

Nearly three years after breaking ground on a $36 million bridge over the Lehigh River that has been in the planning stages for decades, officials from the state Department of Transportation toured the nearly complete American Parkway Bridge on Tuesday afternoon. The bridge offers a direct connection to Airport Road and will link American Parkway on the east side and cross over the Lehigh River to connect with Front Street at an intersection with the existing American Parkway in Center City.

Once complete, the bridge will span slightly more than a mile.

The new bridge crossing will connect the limited-access American Parkway roads that exist on both sides of the Lehigh River and also support the Coca-Cola Park baseball stadium on the east side of the river. Furthermore, the finished bridge will provide access to the new 1-million-square-foot Waterfront development along the west bank of the Lehigh River.

PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards joined officials to walk across the latest fully constructed portion and spoke about the significance of the project for the region.

“We are on target to finish and pay for it,” Richards said, noting that the project is fully funded. “It takes a long time for transportation projects to move forward. It’s not often that I get to go to a new river crossing in the commonwealth. We can take congestion off local roads as well.”

Richards said the bridge will be completed by November.

“The locals have been wanting this project for decades,” Richards said.

While PennDOT is assisting with the project, most of the funding is from federal sources. Once complete, the bridge will be owned and maintained by the city of Allentown, said Ronald Young, PennDOT spokesman.

About 80 percent of the funding for the design is from the federal government, 20 percent from local government. Bridge construction is 100 percent funded by the federal government.

New Enterprise Stone and Lime Co. Inc. of New Enterprise is the construction firm the city hired to build the bridge. HNTB Inc. and McCormick Taylor & Associates prepared the designs while Gannet Fleming Inc. prepared final design-build plans.

Workers will be completing more concrete pours, putting up walls alongside the bridge, finishing the pedestrian access railing and installing a noise wall west of Front Street, said Mike Guidon, senior civil engineer with PennDOT. Workers also have to complete underdeck drainage work among the touch-up work that’s still needed, Guidon said.

The bridge originally had a December 2014 completion date but was delayed because of unexpected water issues, Young said.

Workers planned to build a base for the two piers over the Lehigh River but the pressure from the river water made its way through the cracks in the rock. That forced the construction company to redesign the bases for those two piers, Young said.

The bridge will have two lanes in each direction and include pedestrian sidewalks on the south side facing the Tilghman Street Bridge, Young said.

Source: LVB