It will be a longer ride for some truck drivers through eastern Lower Saucon Township for the foreseeable future, since PennDOT has imposed a new weight restriction on the Bingen Road bridge across the Black River, township manager Jack Cahalan announced at Wednesday night’s township council meeting.
Cahalan said that when PennDOT recently lowered the small bridge’s weight limit to 17 tons, it also created a problem for the township’s public works department, which is headquartered along Old Philadelphia Pike at the municipal complex on the far western side of the township.
The new restriction left only one route suitable for township trucks to take in order to reach the eastern part of the township–west on Black River Road, south on Bingen Road, and then east on Apples Church Road to Route 412.
Cahalan called the intersection of Apples Church Road and Route 412 “terrible.”
The hamstringing of the public works department prompted the township to write a letter to PennDOT’s Engineering District 5-0, in which Cahalan said another concern was raised about the bridge closure.
He explained that weight restrictions on both the Bingen Road bridge and the nearby Friedensville Road bridge, it was feared, would lead trucks to detour onto Quarter Mile, which is very curvy, and Surrey Road, which has a culvert with an uncertain weight limit on it.
“There’s no way that a loaded truck would make [Quarter Mile Road’s curves] without going onto someone’s property and going onto somebody’s lawn,” Cahalan said.
When PennDOT was contacted about the conundrum, he said the state agency was “puzzled” by its own 10-ton weight limit on the Friedensville Road bridge, which dates to 1982.
The weight limit was not imposed for typical reasons, he said, and PennDOT has agreed to possibly remove it.
Even if it is removed, there may still be a problem this winter with trucks attempting to negotiate Hickory Hill and the Seidersville Road bend by Mario’s barber shop.
Cahalan noted that treacherous conditions on that section of roadway have “caused some backups…in the winter.”
He saved the bad news about the Bingen Road bridge for the end of the discussion, informing council that PennDOT has “no plans” to repair or replace it “in the immediate future.”
The township will continue to monitor the situation and deal with any complaints that are received from truck drivers, Cahalan added.
Earlier this year, PennDOT announced that the 76-year-old, crumbling Friedensville Road bridge across the Saucon Creek in Hellertown and Lower Saucon Township will be replaced, with construction expected to begin in a year or two.
Further north along the creek the Northampton County-owned Seidersville Road truss bridge has been closed since early 2011, with no plans for its repair or replacement. The nearby High Street Bridge–which spans a Norfolk-Southern-owned right-of-way–has also been closed since 2011 and is scheduled for replacement by the City of Bethlehem. The eastern end of that bridge touches the city’s border with Hellertown and would connect the Ravena Street neighborhood with the borough.
