The Water Street Bridge was built in 1938 and carries approximately 8,000 vehicles per day across the Saucon Creek, between Hellertown borough and Bethlehem and Lower Saucon Township. The two-lane bridge will be replaced by PennDOT contractor Kriger Construction beginning Monday, July 29. Detours will be in place while the bridge is out.
Although it’s the weekend, PennDOT and Kriger Construction employees have been busy at the site of Hellertown’s Water Street Bridge, which will close for the construction of a replacement bridge on Monday, July 29.
Traffic across the bridge was reduced to one lane with flaggers posted at either end Saturday morning, as some of the final pre-construction pieces of the $3.8 million project were being moved into place.
Detours around the closed bridge will be in place for approximately two months, and signs are now placed along the official PennDOT detour routes, one of which takes trucks through South Bethlehem. The detour for cars utilizes Skibo, Meadows and Friedensville roads in Lower Saucon Township.
Motorists traveling along these detour routes are asked to use caution.
PennDOT confirmed in an update Friday that the new bridge is expected to open to traffic on or before Sept. 27, “with additional work lasting into October.”
The new bridge will be a “two-span, pre-stressed concrete bulb-tee beam bridge and will be 112 feet long and 36 feet seven inches wide,” PennDOT said.
That is slightly shorter and wider than the current bridge, which is a steel girder with reinforced concrete deck bridge with stone masonry abutments.
The new bridge will have a sidewalk that will connect Water Street Park in Hellertown with sidewalk and a pathway on the western side of Creek Road.
For more information on PennDOT projects occurring or being bid this year, those made possible or accelerated by a state transportation funding plan or those on the department’s 4- and 12-Year Plans, visit Projects.Penndot.gov.
Click here for answers to commonly asked questions about the bridge project.
