PennDOT lays out Plank Road culvert work

Options include closing portion of road during construction

HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Normally, concerns with design and execution of a highway project dwarf concerns with controlling traffic after construction begins.

That isn't true for the replacement of a culvert under Plank Road near Park Hills Plaza, a job for which PennDOT held a presentation of plans on Tuesday.

The design and replacement of the culvert that takes a Mill Run tributary across the highway from near Weis Market to the vicinity of Jiffy Lube will be the "easy part," PennDOT Project Manager Nicki Donahoe said, after talking with public officials at PennDOT District 9 headquarters.

The hard part will be minimizing inconvenience and maximizing safety for the occupants of the 10,000 vehicles that pass that spot on an average weekday and the 22,000 that do so on weekend days, according to Donahoe.

PennDOT isn't sure yet how it will handle the problem, but it offered two options to officials -- and to area business representatives and the general public, in separate meetings.

The disfavored option with PennDOT itself, public officials and business representatives calls for closing the five-lane road altogether between the traffic light at Morningside Plaza and the one at the former Kmart several hundred feet away during the entirety of a project that would run around the clock from 7 p.m. on a Sunday to 7 a.m. the following Friday -- with a detour for through-traffic.

The favored option calls for doing half the highway at a time, with one lane in each direction remaining open and an identical work schedule -- Sunday evening to Friday morning, around the clock -- except that there would be two such weeks in succession.

For each option, there would be no left turns in the area, to help keep traffic moving. All businesses would remain accessible to customers, some by right turns directly off the boulevard, others from the rear, through parking lots, with the help of easements purchased from lot owners by PennDOT.

The business representatives asked some questions but had no serious objections, according to Donahoe. "No showstoppers," she said.

Among public officials, Logan Township Police Chief Dave Reese said he would like to see traffic kept moving, while crediting PennDOT for what seems to be conscientious planning.

Traffic control will not only be the most challenging aspect of the project, but will determine how it's designed and executed, which is why it proved necessary to settle the traffic issues this year for a project that won't be constructed until summer 2021, at a time when it wouldn't interfere with school traffic or Christmas shopping, according to Donahoe.

The concrete culvert that will replace the existing 3.5-foot high, 10-foot wide concrete tunnel will be pre-manufactured in lengths that will depend on which traffic-control option is chosen, Donahoe said.

The project won't correct flooding that sometimes occurs in the area, as that is beyond its scope and beyond the responsibility of PennDOT, according to Donahoe and consulting engineers Jim Sedor and Adam Claar of EADS.

The flooding is caused by the lack of downslope for the tributary, which carries runoff from the Park Hills Plaza side across the highway and under commercial real estate, discharging into Mill Run between the back of Gabe's and the back of the former Kmart, the engineers said.

It was given little downslope when it was rerouted many years ago from a natural course that took it to a confluence with Mill Run downstream beyond the back of Logan Valley Mall, they said.

During project construction, the signal lights in the area will be realigned to match the temporary lanes and synchronized to match the new traffic flows -- if the option is chosen that allows for continued passage of traffic, officials said.

Highway workers eating lunch and dinner should help offset losses for at least some of the businesses that will become not as easily accessible during the project, Donahoe said.

District 9 executives will make the ultimate decision about which of the options to use, Donahoe said.

Preparatory and supplemental work will need to be done, but those shouldn't trigger serious traffic problems, according to the engineers.