Politics & Government

Yeakels Mill Bridge Repair Could Get Tabled Indefinitely

Unexpectedly high bids and a desire to lessen 2012 budget shortfall might cause Upper Milford Township Board of Supervisors to delay much-talked about bridge project.

It seems that the Upper Milford Township Board of Supervisors may adopt a philosophy of “if it ain’t broke enough, don’t fix it,” at least as far as a on Yeakels Mill Bridge is concerned.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Steven Ackerman said at last night’s Supervisor’s meeting that the township received four bids on the deck replacement project and that all four bids were more than double the township’s originally .

The bids were all very consistent, Ackerman added, with a low bid of about $153,000 and a high bid of about $176,000.

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Supervisor Robert Sentner asked Township Manager Dan DeLong for his thoughts on why the bids had come in so much higher than anticipated. DeLong said that all four bids had come in from companies that normally do PennDOT bridge work and that the numbers might have been different if a "ma and pa shop" had thrown its hat into the ring.

The board voted unanimously to table any decision about those bids to give DeLong time to review the proposals, which had come in that day, and prepare a report and recommendations for the board.

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Later in the meeting, as the board reviewed a preliminary township budget prepared by DeLong, Ackerman advocated removing the Yeakels Mill project from the 2012 budget entirely.

Taking the bridge project expense -- an $75,000 line item -- out of the budget would do a lot to reighn in the township’s $175,000 budget shortfall, he said.

The issue with Yeakels Mill Bridge comes from corrosion on the two steel beams that support the outer edges of the bridge. The center beams of the bridge are structurally sound.

As a result, the township has kept motorists away from the outer edges by using plastic stakes, called delineators, to direct traffic toward the center of the bridge. The township also installed a sign for eastbound traffic on the bridge: “STOP. Opposing traffic does not stop.”

Since PennDOT has deemed the bridge safe this way, Ackerman said, the township should just leave it alone in order to reap the cost savings.

"The bridge is not falling down," Ackerman said. "It is not in danger of falling down. We have done exactly what PennDOT asked. There is no danger with the bridge."

DeLong pointed out that taking Yeakels Mill out of the budget isn’t so much a cost savings as it is a cost deferment.

Supervisor Robert Sentner said that the township really needs to start thinking about “squirreling away” some money to support infrastructure improvements like the Yeakels Mill project, as the township’s $94,000 reserve fund will be wiped out when fixing Yeakels Mill Bridge becomes unavoidable.


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