Wolf Administration’s Local Bridge Program to Benefit Montgomery County

Wolf Administration's Local Bridge Program to Benefit Montgomery County

10/26/2017-HARRISBURG

Today, the Wolf Administration announced a new partnership to replace a
bridge
in Montgomery County through Governor Wolf's Road Maintenance and
Preservation,
or Road MaP initiative.

"Our program is aimed at helping counties deal with the significant backlog
of
needed work on their bridges," Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
(PennDOT) Secretary Leslie S. Richards said. "Nearly 31 percent of county
bridges are structurally deficient, and nearly 35 percent in Montgomery
County
are in that category. This partnership helps counties address this critical

mobility issue."

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) today approved
adding
a bridge on Waverly Road over Tacony Creek in Cheltenham Township to its
transportation improvement program, a necessary step as part of PennDOT's
collaborative planning process with metropolitan and regional planning
organizations statewide. The estimated $2 million bridge replacement will
use
federal funds made available for local bridge partnerships as a part of the

state's new initiative.

Through Road MaP, PennDOT is making opportunities available for counties
who
have taken steps to enhance their transportation networks by collecting the
$5
vehicle registration fee enabled by Act 89 of 2013, the state
transportation
plan.

The partnership makes available up to $2 million for each county that has
passed a fee resolution, with a 50-percent local match commitment required
to
secure the program funding. Montgomery County has committed to using
funding
collected from the vehicle registration fee to replace its Camp Wawa Road
bridge over East Branch Perkiomen Creek in Lower Salford Township, a
currently
closed steel thru truss, for an estimated $2.6 million for use as its
partnership match.

"Repairing our roads and bridges is one of the core functions of county
government, which is why in 2013 we initiated an aggressive plan to assess,

rehabilitate, or replace 62 of our failing bridges," said Dr. Val Arkoosh,
Chair, Montgomery County Commissioners. "The $5 vehicle registration fee
has
played a crucial role by creating a dedicated stream of revenue to improve
our
infrastructure, and enabled us to leverage even more funding through the
Road
MaP program which will help to further speed up the repair process."

"The Road MaP initiative is a great way for counties to take action to
reduce
the backlog of structurally deficient bridges in Pennsylvania. Getting
those
bridges in a state of good repair is a priority," said DVRPC Associate
Director
for Transportation, Elizabeth Schoonmaker. "Montgomery County's decision to

implement the additional $5 vehicle registration fee ultimately benefits
the
entire Greater Philadelphia region. It's a great example of a local action
with
a regional impact."

The structurally-deficient bridge on Waverly Road was constructed in 1951,
has
a weight limit of 15 tons except 20-ton combinations, and sees roughly
2,400
vehicles daily.

This component of Road MaP is aimed at addressing the needs of
Pennsylvania's
6,536 locally owned bridges, of which 2,008 – or 30.7 percent – are
structurally deficient. The need to improve local bridges was underscored
when
the biennial Transportation Performance Report, assembled by PennDOT, the
State
Transportation Commission, and the Transportation Advisory Committee and
viewable at www.TalkPATransportation.com, identified local bridges as the
only
category receiving a "low" performance rating.

Follow PennDOT on Twitter at www.twitter.com/PennDOTNews and like the
department on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/PennsylvaniaDepartmentofTransportation and Instagram at
www.instagram.com/pennsylvaniadot.

To view a complete list of District 6 News Releases: Click
http://www.penndot.gov/RegionalOffices/district-6/Pages/allnews.aspx

To unsubscribe click
http://www.dot.state.pa.us/penndot/districts/district6/d6media.nsf/unsubscribeform?OpenForm