The Blair County commissioners greenlit the removal of the Jugtown Bridge, which provides more than 40 families a faster way to reach Everett Road and Dunnings Highway, and construction of a cul-de-sac for a maximum cost of about $536,654.

Commissioners approved the agreement between the county and Keller Engineers for services on “Bridge #73” including “preliminary design, final design, service during construction and construction inspection.”

“This is a bridge that we are going to remove, so the services that the engineering firm’s providing for us will be monitoring what’s going on and then the construction phase has to be with the full staff,” Commissioner Amy Webster said during Thursday’s meeting.

The 71-year-old, one-lane steel-construction Jugtown Bridge is owned by the county and is believed to have been salvaged from an old railroad bridge. Located at the end of Mountain Road in Freedom Township, the bridge is about 1.5 miles south of East Freedom and 3.5 miles north of Claysburg.

When asked what influenced the commissioners’ decision to move forward with the bridge’s removal, Webster said “the recommendations of the engineers, the continuous deterioration of the bridge to the point where it would have to be totally eliminated and replaced.”

“The cost to replace that is prohibitive, and then to maintain (it),” Webster said. “That’s expensive, just like we have to pay for inspections, and we’re required to do the inspections.”

Webster said Jugtown Bridge is also in an area “where there are alternate routes out” so “nobody’s going to be landlocked.”

“We have to look at how we can serve people better and part of that includes looking at some of these roads and bridges that might not be needed that have other access routes,” Webster said.

Once the cul-de-sac is constructed, it will no longer be the responsibility of the county.

“It will not be on a county road, so it will not belong to the county,” Webster said. “It would be the township that plows and takes care of that.”

In December 2023, Webster informed Jugtown residents that the county had two options: replacing the bridge with a new, two-lane bridge or removing it and constructing a cul-de-sac. At that time, Webster said the commissioners held two meetings on the topic: one with public officials and an Oct. 30, 2023, meeting with the public. Several residents said they weren’t notified of the public meeting until after it had taken place.

In January 2024, the total proposed project costs to replace the bridge were estimated at about $3.4 million. Construction on the two-lane bridge would be anticipated to begin in 2028 and have a 50-year lifecycle maintenance cost of $500,000. The total proposed project costs to remove Jugtown Bridge and build the cul-de-sac would be about $735,000. With the cul-de-sac option, the construction will begin almost immediately.

During a commissioner’s meeting on Jan. 16, 2024, Commissioner Dave Kessling, who at the time had been in office for two weeks, said he wasn’t yet familiar with the project, while Commissioner Laura Burke said she understood there was to be a third meeting on the proposed project.

It is unclear if a third meeting took place.

Webster said at the time there was no timetable for discussion or a decision on the bridge, but that the project would be subject to review in 2024.

During another commissioners meeting on July 30, 2024, Webster asked Kessling and Burke to accept an engineering recommendation calling for removal of Jugtown Bridge and creating a cul-de-sac.

Burke recalled that the Jugtown Bridge replacement project was on PennDOT’s list of projects for future funding under the Transportation Improvement Program. She had asked if the county didn’t use that funding to replace the Jugtown Bridge, could it be used to cover the cost of creating a cul-de-sac, to which Webster said she thought that if the county doesn’t use TIP money for a designated project, the county could ask for the money to be reassigned to another project.

Kessling then suggested tabling Webster’s motion to provide time for a closer look at available money and get answers to more questions.

The Jugtown Bridge was not brought up during a commissioner’s meeting again until Thursday.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.