Kathy Liebler
                        Director of Public Information


C   O   M   M   I   S   S   I   O   N                N   E   W   S             R   E   L   E   A   S   E   

Contact: Joe Agnello, (724) 755-5262, (724) 755-5142 fax
               e-mail: jagnello@paturnpike.com

May 18, 1999

NEW MON/FAYETTE CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT INCLUDES WHAT WILL BE THE HIGHEST BRIDGES ON PENNSYLVANIA TURNPIKE SYSTEM

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission today awarded Dick Corporation of Allegheny County a $49,156,205 contract to construct 1.5 miles of the Mon/Fayette Expressway from Pa. Route 136 near Ringgold High School north to Courtney Run Road in Union Township, Washington County.

Construction Section 52G, part of the 17-mile Mon/Fayette Expressway Project that will link Interstate 70 in Fallowfield Township, Washington County with Pa. Route 51 in Jefferson Hills Borough, Allegheny County, includes dual bridges that will span an active Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad trestle by about 50 feet. They will be the highest on the Pennsylvania Turnpike system, supplanting a span north of Allentown on Interstate 476 (the Turnpike’s Northeast Extension).

The surface of the concrete decks on the dual bridges will be 252 feet above Mingo Creek, surpassing by 62 feet the height of the bridge that carries the northbound lanes of the Turnpike’s Northeast Extension over Hawk Falls at Milepost 68.6 in Carbon County.

The dual bridges that will sit atop concrete piers and abutments over Mingo Creek, Pa. Route 88 and the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad trestle will be nearly a half-mile long. The bridge carrying the southbound lanes, at about 2,500 feet, will be the third-longest on the Turnpike system, behind Interstate 276’s Delaware River Bridge at Milepost 359 (6,571 feet) and Interstate 76’s Susquehanna River Bridge at Milepost 245.7 (4,526 feet).

Interstate 76’s Beaver River Bridge 13.2 miles into Pennsylvania from the Ohio line is 170 feet high and will drop to third on the elevation chart. The Delaware River Bridge from Pennsylvania into New Jersey, at 160 feet, will drop to fourth-highest on the Turnpike system.

Dick Corporation submitted the lowest of nine bids for Construction Section 52G, which were opened April 29 and referred for internal review. Bidders were invited to offer either a weathering steel/multi-girder bridge construction or a segmental concrete bridge construction. None chose the segmental concrete option. The highest bid received was $57.7 million.

Today’s action increases to over $411 million the value of Mon/Fayette Expressway construction contracts awarded by the Turnpike Commission. Dick Corporation now has three Mon/Fayette construction contracts totaling about $96 million, ranking it third in collective value.

New Enterprise Stone and Lime Company of Bedford County has four contracts totaling nearly $124 million. Mashuda Corporation of Butler County has six contracts totaling more than $97 million.

Companies based in southwestern Pennsylvania have won some $384 million of the $411 million worth of Mon/Fayette Expressway construction contracts awarded since October 1994.

The 17-mile Mon/Fayette Expressway from I-70 north to Pa. Route 51 is targeted for completion in late 2001. Also under construction is the eight-mile Pennsylvania leg of the Mon/Fayette Expressway’s Mason Dixon Link south of Uniontown. It will open late this year.

Prospective alignments for two other Mon/Fayette Expressway projects are under study as the Turnpike Commission continues to refine alternatives and compile information for required Environmental Impact Statements.

One is from Uniontown to the Brownsville area. The other is the Pittsburgh link, which is to extend north from Pa. Route 51 in Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County to connections with Interstate 376 in the City and near Monroeville.

The four Mon/Fayette Expressway projects, along with small sections of expressway in the California and Uniontown areas that opened earlier this decade, will connect to form a 65-mile highway system south from Pittsburgh through the Monongahela River Valley and western Fayette County to Interstate 68 just east of Morgantown, West Virginia.

 

 P.O. Box 67676, Harrisburg, PA 17106-7676         Phone: (717) 939-9551         Fax: (717) 986-9649