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PennDOT Bridge Work to Tangle Traffic This Weekend

PITTSTON TOWNSHIP — It’s an interchange that leads to dozens of businesses, including a casino and race track, and that interchange and the road bel...

PITTSTON TOWNSHIP -- It's an interchange that leads to dozens of businesses, including a casino and race track, and that interchange and the road below it are scheduled to be closed all weekend long.

Two bridges that carry Interstate 81 over Route 315 and the Pittston exit are scheduled to be closed Friday evening as summer travel season is still in full swing.

Crews have been working on a bridge and beam removal project along Route 315 near the Dupont/ Pittston exit of Interstate 81. It's part of a $27 million project that will replace a total of four bridges. This weekend, crews are scheduled to remove two: the northbound and southbound beams over Route 315.

"In order to do that, make it safest for the traveling public, is to completely shut down 315 over the weekend," said Patty Fritsky.

Frtisky is a project manager with PennDOT and explains part of Route 315 under I-81 is set to close starting at 6 p.m. Friday. Also closed: the exit for Pittston on I-81 southbound (exit 175a).

Fritsky says one reason the roads have to be closed this weekend is that this is the time that the manufacturer picked to deliver the bridge beams

"All the work is based on a construction schedule which a lot of times is set up a year a year and a half in advance."

But some commuters worry about the roads and exit being closed all weekend, like Madysen Jones of Laflin.

"I'm always passing up here, so it's going to be real inconvenient for me," Jones said.

"I think it's going to be horrible tonight. I mean with Friday night that's going to really mess things up, definitely, definitely," said David Stock of Wilkes-Barre.

PennDOT says closing part of Route 315 for the entire weekend is the best option for commuters. The only other real alternative they say would have been to keep one lane of traffic open. But that project would have lasted for an entire month instead of just one weekend.

"That alone, to me, seems like a very large traveling public impact savings," said Fritsky.

"It's just to better the traffic flow and make it safer for people to travel," said Marion Reap of Pittston Township.

PennDOT is working to open Route 315 by Monday, but dozens of businesses use the road, and some businesses say all this construction work over the weekend is costing them .

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