Local Officials Critical of Road Closure's Handling

The across the Saucon Creek in Bethlehem has led to the temporary closure of Applebutter Road in Lower Saucon Township, and township officials are not happy about the notification process Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) officials undertook prior to the road's closure Sept. 16.

At a hastily organized meeting at Lower Saucon Town Hall Sept. 21, Lower Saucon council members, State Rep. Bob Freeman (D-136), representatives for and others criticized PennDOT officials present at the meeting for doing little besides placing a display board announcing the project and highlighting Applebutter Road's closure in the town hall lobby in the spring of 2010.

Applebutter Road is a two-lane road that has become an important transportation route in and out of eastern Lower Saucon Township and southeastern Bethlehem, where businesses including the landfill, a Calpine-owned power plant known as the Bethlehem Energy Center and the family-owned are located along it.

PennDOT engineer Catherine Chia Calabria, who was part of the Philadelphia design team that planned the Shimersville Road bridge project, initially attempted to defend the use of the display board as a notification tool for township officials.

"On the display board, we mentioned that Applebutter Road was going to be closed," she said. "In my opinion, it's very clearly stated on the display board. It's bolded and underlined. So I'm not sure where the miscommunication happened."

The display board was dropped off at Lower Saucon Town Hall on May 14, 2010, and was retrieved on May 24, 2010, she said.

Prior to the delivery of the display board, Chia Calabria said a letter was sent to the township requesting information related to the project.

That letter was sent on April 16, 2010, and the township's response to it led the design team to believe that officials did not want Shimersville Road to be completely closed during the construction phase of the project, she said.

But the possible closure of Applebutter Road was never indicated in the letter, which meant it was not a source of concern at the time, several local officials said.

"How would the township have known that Applebutter Road was being closed because of this project?" Lower Saucon Council Vice President Tom Maxfield asked, following Chia Calabria's remarks. 

Maxfield said that, per protocol, the township should have had an opportunity to give feedback specifically related to the proposed closure of Applebutter Road.

However, after the initial letter of April 16, "we did not have another opportunity to give that feedback," he said.

Maxfield called this "unacceptable," and that sentiment was echoed by others at the meeting, which was attended by fire chiefs from both and fire departments, a representative from , Hellertown Borough Manager Cathy Kichline, Hellertown Public Works Director Tom Henshaw and numerous other impacted parties.

Particularly critical of the way in which the road closure was advertised was IESI Bethlehem Landfill manager Sam Donato, who said that as a result of the closure, the business is now losing customers to a nearby competitor.

"As a business, I had no notification that Applebutter Road was closing, other than (from) the school board," Donato said. "As Tom (Maxfield) said, it's just unacceptable practice for the state government to operate this way."

Donato said he first learned that the road would be closed "around Aug. 22," and told PennDOT officials that the landfill's "customers right now are just irate that the road is not open."

"It has impacted my customers to the point that they will now go to a competing landfill down on (Interstate) 78 because it's easier for them to get there," he said.

State Rep. Bob Freeman (D-136) also called the display board "not enough" in terms of the notification that was given, and called it "unacceptable."

After hearing these comments, PennDOT Engineering District 5-0 Assistant District Executive for Construction Alfred A. Picca Jr. acknowledged that something had apparently gone wrong with the notification process, but said he was unsure what had happened. 

"Probably we didn't follow our own protocols," he said. "Why this didn't happen here, I can't tell you."

Picca and other PennDOT officials present, along with the contractor who has already begun work on the bridge, emphasized that the work must proceed without delay because of serious deterioration of the bridge's steel beams and joints, which have been corroded by leakage of water through the bridge's concrete deck.

Chia Calabria said the wintertime use of calcium chloride on the road above has accelerated the deterioration of the 43-year-old structure.

At present, Applebutter Road is expected to remain closed until Nov. 24, or until the first phase of the project is completed.

Because one of the bridge's deck joints is right on Applebutter Road, there was "really no way to keep Applebutter Road open" during this phase of the project, Chia Calabria said.

The contractor for the project, Dennis Brubaker of J.D. Eckman, Inc., acknowledged that the timeline for the first phase is an ambitious one, and said it has already been determined that deck repairs it was thought would take a couple of weeks "could (take) a month" to complete.

"It's a heck of a lot of work," he said. "There's four times as many repairs to do to that bridge as anyone thought would be there."

As long as Applebutter Road remains closed, the detour in place for motorists who normally access it via Shimersville involves taking Route 412 south to Cherry Lane, to Easton Road, to Lower Saucon Road, to the east end of Applebutter Road.

However, this detour has already resulted in tractor-trailers attempting to turn from Cherry Lane onto 412 by I-78 "going up over the curb," Hellertown Police Chief Robert Shupp said.

He added that the borough is "starting to see an impact in traffic" as a result of the road closure and detour, and he recommended that PennDOT officials look at changing the timing of traffic lights along the detour route, including the one at Cherry Lane and Route 412.

"(During) the peak hours we're really having problems," he said. 

He added, "we also have , so that's no longer accessible."

Picca said officials would look into temporarily retiming traffic lights in the Hellertown area, to help ease .

For the time being, Picca said both PennDOT and J.D. Eckman would work to maintain access for emergency vehicles to Steel City, which Lower Saucon Township Police Chief Guy Lesser noted has "the largest concentration of population in the township."

Steel City is accessed almost exclusively from the south via Shimersville Road, which will be reduced to one lane in each direction while the bridge work is taking place.

Lesser asked Picca to establish an area for emergency vehicles to travel through and to keep that area open for the duration of the project, but to block it off to the regular traffic with the use of "very light barricades."

"What I'm referring to is a narrow lane," he said. "I think you can accomplish that."

"We'll do the best we can," Picca responded. 

The entire project Shimersville Road bridge replacement project has an estimated price tag of $1.7 million and is expected to be completed in September 2012.

At the meeting, Maxfield inquired whether , just south of where this project is taking place, would begin before the Shimersville Road bridge rehabilitation is completed.

"That's a significantly long project," Picca said. "That's something I'm going to end up looking at."

If the two roads do end up being under construction at the same time, "we have people that might as well camp out on 412," Maxfield quipped.