SCRANTON, Pa. -- This is the last week for the full Harrison Avenue bridge in Scranton. Plans to take the old bridge down begin on April 18.
The bridge was built in the early 1920s and the project to replace it, which started in 2014, has not been easy.
"This has a number of challenges and we've run into the challenges throughout the duration of the project. You have some high voltage electrical lines. This bridge goes over the Central Scranton Expressway, which is one of the main arteries in and out of Scranton. It goes over top of the brook here. It goes over top of a railroad," said James May, PennDOT.
The bridge will be taken down in three phases. Machines will tear down the portion over the Central Scranton Expressway next week, followed by the part of the bridge over by the railroad tracks.
PennDOT says taking down the final part of the bridge, the middle section, will depend on the level of Roaring Brook.
"What we're looking at right now, you have that old phrase of 'If the creek don't rise', this is literally one of those cases. It the creek don't rise, that's when we're going to come in and do the implosion on May 18. The concern is if the creek water if flowing too strong at that point when you drop the bridge a lot of that debris will go down into the water and we don't want any flooding condition back upstream," said May.
A detour will direct traffic from the Central Scranton Expressway to Moosic Street beginning Wednesday, April 18 at 8 p.m. through Monday, April 23 at 6 a.m.
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