Rte. 36 plans draw crowd
PennDOT offers details on two proposed projects
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About 30 people attended a public plans display Tuesday for two proposed PennDOT projects in and around Altoona, slated for construction in 2025.
One includes replacement of the Union Avenue bridge over Mill Run between Crescent Road and 31st Street, along with safety improvements to the intersections of those streets with Union.
The other includes milling and repaving of Route 36 between Plank Road and the top of Red Hill, plus replacement of two culverts that take Dry Run under Route 36 near its intersection with Washington Avenue, partway down Red Hill.
Ann Brown of 31st Street came to learn if the projects would affect her property.
"It sounds like it won't," she said.
"We're happy," she stated. "Others may not be."
One of those others was Pat Kenney, who lives on Union, across from where Crescent and 31st Street intersect.
She'll be losing 11 feet of her front yard, to accommodate the addition of left-turn lanes, so that northbound traffic on Union can turn more safely into Crescent or 31st Street.
Kenney's loss will include two large sycamore trees between the sidewalk and Union, she said.
The encroachment will make her house more vulnerable to being hit by a vehicle, she said.
"I'm extremely upset," she stated.
The property loss will be within the PennDOT right-of-way, so she likely won't be compensated, although she plans to have her property surveyed to be sure, she said.
Still, the project manager whom she and her friend Don Reed spoke with was kind and empathetic, she said.
The project manager promised to see whether something could be done to ensure against an errant vehicle crashing into her house, she said.
"If they can help us, they will," Reed said.
Another attendee who left unhappy was Frank Finelli, whose property is at the corner of Union Avenue and 31st Street.
Workers will close off his front driveway, which is right where the street and avenue intersect, enabling him now to pull directly onto Union, he said.
They'll replace it with a driveway farther back on 31st Street, which will force him at times to cross traffic that will be entering 31st from Union, he said.
That could be unsafe, while the current configuration is not, he said.
He intends to contest the plan.
"I have some real hell to raise," he said.
In contrast to Kenney and Finelli, Vic Gioiosa was pleased with the plans.
In replacing the Dry Run culverts under Route 36, workers will lessen the slope within the pipes to reduce water velocity during storms, said Tim O'Donnell, senior project engineer for SAI Consulting Engineers, a PennDOT consultant.
Workers will also install barriers within the pipes and just downstream from their outlets to further dissipate the water's energy, O'Donnell said.
That should help solve a perennial problem with a washout on one edge of his property just below the discharge point of the upper culvert, Gioiosa said.
He's not concerned that the work won't take place for two more years, because he's been waiting for many years to see it done, he said.
The work that will be done in the lower culvert may help reduce erosion on the small farm in the V formed by the intersection of Route 36 and Washington Avenue, due to the lesser velocity of the flow that will be entering the property, O'Donnell conceded.
The Union Avenue bridge over Mill Run needs to be replaced because after 109 years, its service life has ended, O'Donnell said.
The new bridge will be a box culvert, he said.
The current basic configuration of the two-pronged Crescent Road intersection with Union Avenue will be preserved, but the new design will force drivers turning left onto Crescent and those turning left out of Crescent to use the right-angled component of that intersection -- rather than the acute-angled part.
The configuration of the 31st Street intersection with Union will go from slightly skewed to a right angle, so drivers exiting 31st Street won't need to crane their necks to see traffic coming from the left, O'Donnell said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.