New Lincoln Drive Bridge to Open Thursday

The new southbound Lincoln Drive Bridge over Ridge Avenue at the Gustine Lake Interchange will be open and ready for motorists Thursday afternoon, six weeks ahead of schedule.

The re-opening of the bridge will significantly improve rush-hour traffic on Ridge Avenue, a release from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation stated. 

Below is the new traffic pattern for the bridge: 

• Southbound Lincoln Drive motorists exiting at Ridge Avenue North will only be allowed to turn right onto northbound Ridge Avenue. 
• Southbound Lincoln Drive motorists heading to I-76 and Route 1 need to travel in the left lane and exit on the left immediately after crossing over Ridge Avenue. 
• Southbound Lincoln Drive travelers heading to Ridge Avenue South will continue into southbound Kelly Drive and turn left at Midvale Avenue.

The bridge over Ridge Avenue has been closed to southbound traffic since construction began to remove and replace the former structurally deficient bridge in June of 2010, a PennDOT statement continued, adding that since then southbound motorists have been forced to exit Lincoln Drive at the Ridge Avenue off-ramp as crews built the new bridge one half at a time. 

According to PennDOT, the old Lincoln Drive span over Ridge Avenue was built in 1964 and carried 20,100 vehicles per day prior to its partial closure. It was one of four structurally deficient bridges at the interchange to be replaced as part of a $20.2 million project to improve the Gustine Lake Interchange, which moves nearly 100,000 motorists a day between City Avenue, Lincoln Drive, Kelly Drive and Ridge Avenue.

The Ridge Avenue ramp to southbound City Avenue will remain closed for the replacement of the ramp's structurally deficient bridge over northbound Kelly Drive. The ramp is scheduled to reopen late next month. 

In addition to the bridge replacements, PennDOT’s interchange improvement project includes the relocation of the northbound City Avenue ramp and the Kelly Drive ramp to Ridge Avenue and the creation of a new signalized intersection where both ramps intersect Ridge Avenue, the release stated. 

Additional enhancements to the interchange, include: new lighting, 15 new sign structures with new directional signs, eight bio-retention basins, 300 new trees and shrubs, and a stone finish on bridge columns and walls. The entire project is scheduled to finish in October 2011.

 The Gustine Lake Interchange improvement project is financed with $13.7 million of federal ARRA funds and over $6 million of other federal funds.