Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Lane restrictions and delays are expected on the freeway below.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- Motorists using the Shenango Valley Freeway today and Wednesday can expect traffic delays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
A work crew from Carmen Paliotta Contracting Inc. of Library, Pa., is dismantling the 300-foot Oakland Avenue Viaduct, which spans the freeway between Sharpsville and Stambaugh avenues.
A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said there will be lane restrictions and delays over the next two days as dismantling continues overhead.
What happened
The bridge was to be replaced in 2001, but Mercer County, which owns the structure, halted work on the replacement in November of that year as Paliotta was about to pour the concrete deck on the replacement bridge.
A problem with the concrete pedestals that support the structure had caused a misalignment that gave the bridge a slight S shape.
Discussions among the contractor, the county and PennDOT, which is paying 80 percent of the $3.6 million project cost (the federal government is covering the remaining 20 percent), failed to come up with an acceptable plan for correcting the problem. So Paliotta announced it will dismantle the bridge, correct the pedestal problems, then reconstruct it.
The company has already been paid $2.9 million for the work done in 2001, but the cost of dismantling and reconstruction is expected to exceed the remaining $700,000 in the contact.
The county says the misalignment problem is the contractor's fault and the contractor must bear any additional cost.
Paliotta said it was a county inspector who directed that crushed stone be used beneath the concrete pedestals rather than the concrete called for in the contract. Therefore, it is the county's fault that the pedestals settled and Paliotta has told the county it will sue to cover any additional costs incurred as a result.
The county maintains that there was no change approved regarding the pedestals and no documentation supporting Paliotta's claim that a county inspector authorized such a change.