Public comment vital in bridge ranking

Four Solebury stone arch bridges could be preserved by the Pennsylvania Deaprtment of Transportation depending on their rank, which includes public opinion.

By: Linda Seida
   SOLEBURY — If preserving the four stone arch bridges in Solebury is important to you, now is the time to speak up and make your opinion count.
   The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is seeking input from the public as it tries to prioritize the preservation of 126 of the bridges in southeastern Pennsylvania for a management plan it calls Project Keystone. Public opinion is one of the seven criteria the department will use to rank the structures.
   The bridges are located in the counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Chester and Delaware. To be considered for inclusion in the preservation project, bridges must be 20 feet or longer and used only by motor vehicles, not trains.
   "The 126 bridges in southeastern Pennsylvania is one of the largest concentrations of stone arch bridges in America," said Michael Cotter, township manager, at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. "Solebury has four PennDOT jurisdiction stone arch bridges within its boundaries. Two structures, both in Carversville, rank in the top one-third of the results."
   The location and construction dates of the four 19th century Solebury stone bridges are: Atkinson Road over Pidcock Creek, built in 1873; Sugan Road over Cuttalossa Creek, built in 1886; Aquatong Road over Morris Run in Carversville, built in 1854; and Fleecy Dale Road over Poquessing Creek in Carversville, built in 1884.
   The two Carversville bridges currently are ranked 18 and 32 out of the 126 bridges. The other two bridges in the township are ranked 71 and 113. Their placement could rise or fall depending on the results of public comment.
   Mr. Cotter learned the participation of residents is vital in the process of ranking the bridges’ needs when he attended a meeting two weeks ago with PennDOT’s historic preservation liaison, representatives of the Federal Highway Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers, and the project’s consulting engineers, Skelly and Loy of Harrisburg.
   "Public sentiment will be key in ranking our bridges higher in PennDOT’s matrix," he said. "PennDOT awards public sentiment points based on, literally, how many people either visit the web site www.pastonearch.org or attend the public meetings to speak in favor of preservation."
   He urged residents who want to have a say in the process to attend a public meeting with PennDOT this month and voice their concerns or visit the project’s Web site and fill out a survey.
   The public meeting for Bucks County residents is scheduled for May 19 at Central Bucks High School West, 347 W. Court and Lafayette streets, Doylestown. Directions can be found at www.cbsd.org/cb-west/directions.htm. The survey can be found at www.pastonearch.org/comments.html.
   Other meetings will be held in Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties from May 28 through June 4.
   In addition to public sentiment, the criteria used to rank the bridges include: the condition of the structure and the substructure; transportation, which looks at average daily traffic, among other traffic concerns; water adequacy, which notes how often the body of water spanned by the bridge rises and tops its growth, based on the Delaware Valley Planning Commission’s projections; historic significance, which will take into account eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places, contribution to a historic district and how much of the original structure remains; and cost.