There’s a laundry list of things to do before state transportation officials can begin replacing the 127-year-old Layton Bridge over the Youghiogheny River.
They include — but are not limited to — clearing out trees and vegetation in the area surrounding both the old bridge and its eventual replacement in a $56 million project. That also means ensuring the safety of hikers and cyclists on the Great Allegheny Passage, which runs directly beneath the bridge; tarping off the entire Layton-facing side of the hill to keep bats from re-entering its caves as crews prepare to blast down roughly 50 feet; and inspecting the existing bridge, which is what a crew was doing on a crisp, cool Monday morning.
The inspection crew was using what PennDOT Assistant District Executive for Construction Bill Beaumariage called a “snooper crane,” an oversized bucket truck whose arm has five points of articulation. While sitting atop the bridge, it can dip a crew of four or five people over the side and underneath to inspect the infrastructure and the maintenance that has taken place over more than a century.
PennDOT’s plan is to keep the original Layton Bridge in place while constructing its replacement. That means diving even deeper than the current mandatory six-month inspections on the structure, which was built in 1899.
Beaumariage said in one sense, the former rail bridge is massively over-engineered for its current purpose of carrying a single vehicle at a time.
“It was designed for a dead load (the weight of the bridge itself) and live loads (trains) much higher than what we’d see with any kind of traffic,” Beaumariage said. “But that has been a double-edged sword because over the years, knowing that it would eventually have to be replaced, we’ve maintained it, and now it’s reaching a point where the overall decay has started on a downhill slide.”
PennDOT will spend several million dollars simply keeping the bridge open while building a new one. Even before the engineering plans were drafted, however, the department had to make a case for demolishing a historic structure.
“By state law, we have to show that this bridge can’t be rehabilitated and still meet the needs of the community before we can remove it,” Beaumariage said. “The historians really put us through the rigor to prove that there was no concept where we could meet people’s needs and still maintain the bridge. There’s also the environmental aspects, which is why we chased the bats out and tarped the hillside, and also why we cleared trees and vegetation around the site.”
The work ahead
With much of the groundwork in place, Beaumariage said, some of the next steps will include blasting through 4,000 cubic yards of the hill on the Perryopolis side of the Yough, next to the tunnel that leads onto the bridge.
“The new bridge will approach the river at a 90-degree angle, instead of the slanted angle on the old bridge, which requires a longer span,” Beaumariage said.
The goal is to have the new bridge finished in 2028, followed shortly afterward by demolition of the old bridge — though not all of it will be scrapped. A plaque on the Layton side, marking the bridge as the work of the A.P. Roberts Co. and Pencoyd Iron Works outside of Philadelphia, will likely be preserved, Beaumariage said.
“We’ve also been in communication with several of the historical groups in this area,” he said. “There’s a group working on the Sheepskin Trail coming out of Point Marion, and they want a piece of the metalwork to make almost a placard as you come into Morgantown. It’s a way of paying homage to the industrial nature of this area.”
An isolated work site
The main reason PennDOT chose to keep the current Layton Bridge open during construction is because of how residents in this small pocket of Fayette County are isolated by the geography. Were the bridge to close, locals would have to drive about 7 miles — either north to Smithton or south to Dawson — to cross the Yough.
That isolation also poses one of the biggest logistical challenges for PennDOT work crews and contractors.
“We have hundreds of thousands of pounds of materials we have to bring into here,” Beaumariage said. “And we have to bring them (on the Perryopolis side), which means going over a brick-paved traffic circle that’s more than 100 years old.”
PennDOT is working with Perryopolis officials and said they will likely replace the traffic circle and restore it after construction is finished.
“We’re also going to patch and pave the road all the way out to Route 51,” Beaumariage said. “Because we’re definitely going to beat it up a little bit.”
The approach to the bridge on the Perryopolis side will be rebuilt, and Beaumariage said cyclists and hikers will be able to use the Great Allegheny Passage continuously throughout construction, with the exception of a handful of safety-mandated temporary restrictions.
The old rail tunnel also will be completely filled in once construction of the new Layton Bridge is complete.
“Tunnels are very expensive to maintain,” Beaumariage said. “An open cut like we’re doing is safer, cheaper to construct and cheaper to maintain.”
For more, see PennDOT.gov and enter “Layton Bridge project” in the search box.