From Pike Press.com

One Way Days Ahead

By Josh Wengler

MATAMORAS – PennDOT’s plans to begin rehabilitating the aging bridge that connects Matamoras and Port Jervis, restricting traffic to one lane for a six-month period, are scheduled to begin within the month and are going to make those quick runs into PA for smokes or into PJ for beer a bit more time consuming.

Residents who use the Matamoras- Port Jervis bridge as part of their daily routine are going to find their travels complicated by the changed traffic patterns.

Carla Medura, the engineer managing the project for PennDOT, says state officials, police and other emergency management officials have hashed out the details of how to re-route traffic during the bridge repair, and have decided that the best way to redirect the flow is to keep the NY to PA travel lane open and close the bridge to traffic going the other way. She says emergency services personnel came to this conclusion after a series of meetings in which they took into account the high number of cross border volunteers living on the Port side of the Delaware.

“With all the New York residents who serve in Pennsylvania emergency services,” Medura explained, “It was decided that keeping the westbound lane open will work best.” In emergencies, police will stop traffic at the Port side of the bridge to allow fire and ambulance personnel to pass, she said. The rest of us will have to wait our turn for access to the single open travel lane.

Two thirds of the bridge structure will be replaced, Medura explained, in a $2.6 million dollar bid paid for by the federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) signed into law early last year by President Obama, which allocated a hefty sum for repair and upgrades to crumbling national transportation infrastructure, especially bridges.

“The work will start either April 5 or March 29,” Medura explained, “Depending on what the weather does between now and the end of the month.”