Foster Township – Tuna Cross Road Bridge
The construction of the Tuna Cross Road Bridge over the Tunungwant Creek in Foster Township, McKean County, Pennsylvania has been completed and the new bridge was opened to traffic in June 2007. The new bridge is a two span prestressed concrete adjacent box beam structure with a reinforced concrete deck. Each span of the new bridge is approximately 100 feet long. The abutments, piers and wingwalls are reinforced concrete that are supported on steel monotube piles. The bridge has two 9 foot wide lanes, a 5 foot wide shoulder, a 6 foot wide shoulder and a 5 feet wide sidewalk that is raised 8 inches above the adjacent roadway. The new bridge is located where an old bridge had once been used to cross the creek. The old bridge was a two span steel truss and steel thru-girder structure with a wood deck. The abutments and pier were concrete and the structure was a single lane bridge approximately 14 feet wide. The old bridge was closed to all traffic on April 5, 1979 and the superstructure was removed in April 1997. The abutments, pier and wing walls remained in place until the new bridge construction began. The design of the bridge project was completed by E&M Engineers and Surveyors, PC and their subconsultants. Wilson Consulting Group of Mechanicsburg, PA was the structural sub-consultant, Skelly and Loy, Inc. of Harrisburg, PA was the environmental sub-consultant and Geo-mechanics, Inc. of Elizabeth, PA was the geo-technical sub-consultant. The design was completed using PennDOT standards and was completed under the direction of the PennDOT Engineering District 2-0 located in Clearfield, PA. The construction of the bridge project was let for bidding in May 2006 and the low bidder for the project was Mekis Construction Corporation of Fenelton, PA with a price of $1,942,421.53. The federal government contributed 80% of the funding for the design and construction of the bridge, the state of Pennsylvania contributed 15% and Foster Township was responsible for the remaining 5%. The Tuna Valley Trail Association also contributed to the funding of the project (as part of the Township 5% share) since the bridge will become part of their trail system. The bridge will be used to loop the existing Crook Farm Trail that runs along the west stream bank of the Tunungwant Creek from Bolivar Drive to Tuna Cross Road to the trail that is scheduled to be constructed soon. This new trail will run along the east stream bank from the new bridge back to Bolivar Drive. Mekis Construction Corporation and their subcontractors began construction at the end of July 2006. The abutments, wing walls and pier were installed and the beams were set prior to the planned winter shutdown in December 2006. Mekis started work again in March 2007 and the project was successfully finished by the scheduled completion date of June 7, 2007. The pre-stressed adjacent box beams were supplied by Top Roc Newcrete Products of Erie, PA and the cast-in place concrete for the project was supplied by Bissett Building Center of Bradford, PA. Interstate Amesite was retained by Mekis to complete the paving work for the approximately 560 feet of roadwork that was required for the bridge project. Penn Line Service, Inc. of Scottsdale, PA installed the guide rail. Glenn O. Hawbaker of State College, PA and Turtlepoint, PA paved the Tuna Cross Road from the limits of the bridge project to Seaward Avenue and East Main Street as part of the annual Township paving program. This work was completed on June 8 and June 11, 2007. The design and construction of the bridge project was completed thanks to the hard work of the Foster Township Supervisors (Cary Caber, Bob Slike and Chris Wolcott), the Foster Township Secretary (Jennifer Gorrell) and the Foster Township Highway Superintendent (Joe Sweet) and his staff.
