NEW CASTLE Mercer Road project will add drainage system, widen lanes

The project is estimated to cost $3.2 million.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Mercer Road -- once the main thoroughfare from New Castle to Mercer -- is getting some much-needed work.
Plans for a road improvement project will be unveiled at a public meeting Wednesday at Pearson Park in Neshannock Township.
John Alvetro, project manager for Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said the work will be done in the township, from Maitland Lane to Mitchell Road, and include widening the road and adding a water drainage system.
"They have a problem with drainage on that road. There is none at all. When there is a big rainstorm, the water sits on the road," he said.
John DiCola, a township supervisor and road master, said the drainage problem has become a public safety issue in the winter when the road freezes over. He said there have been numerous car crashes including a few fatal accidents on the road.
DiCola noted the road has become more widely used in the past five years as an alternative to traveling Pa. Route 18, which runs parallel to Mercer Road.
Timetable
Alvetro said the road work likely won't start until summer 2004 and should end sometime that fall.
PennDOT officials are now working on taking property adjacent to the road to accommodate widening it. He said they will only take small pieces of property from private owners and are still negotiating with many of them.
"We need just enough to put in the road and a little buffer in between. Most of the houses along that road sit far enough back. It probably won't affect their house at all," he said.
Alvetro noted that the project originally spanned seven miles, taking it to the Mercer County line, but it has been cut back to two miles because there was not enough money available.
He said those two miles are the most heavily traveled portion of the road. The rest of the road could be widened at a later date, he said.
Cost
The first phase is estimated to cost $3.2 million with about 80 percent of the money coming from the federal government and the rest from the state, he said.
DiCola said some residents were concerned that it would become a three-lane road, but plans only call for two wider lanes.
The road and its shoulders will span about 40 feet total when done, Alvetro said.
The project manager said PennDOT hoped to keep at least one lane of traffic open through construction. Traffic traveling in the opposite direction will be given a detour, he added.
cioffi@vindy.com