Six years after it was closed, construction is slated to start this spring on a new High Street bridge on the Bethlehem-Hellertown border.  

The High Street bridge was closed in June 2011 and is now finally getting replaced.lehighvalleylive.com file photo 

The one-lane wooden bridge was closed by Bethlehem in June of 2011 after an inspection detected rotting wood and deteriorating mason supports.

The span crosses an abandoned Norfolk Southern railroad track, where Seidersville Road and High Street meet.

The timing of the closure was particularly bad because it came on the heels of the shutdown of the nearby Seidersville Road bridge, which is owned by Northampton County.

The two closures left residents who live in the area of the flooding-prone Ravena Street with only one way out of their neighborhood onto Route 412.

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Bethlehem has awarded a contract for the bridge replacement to Grace Industries. It will be rebuilt as a two-lane $1 million span, said Mike Alkhal, city engineer and director of public works.

Work could start as early as next month and the bridge should open by the end of 2017, Alkhal said.

Norfolk Southern wanted to remove the 1910 bridge, fill in the area underneath and lay a road over the fill. That created problems for the city because the bridge runs over an area officials want to use to continue the South Bethlehem Greenway.

The one-lane wooden High Street bridge is going to be replaced with a two-lane bridgelehighvalleylive.com file photo 

In the end, the rail company gave the city $400,000 towards the design and engineering costs of the new bridge.

The city was able to get the project onto the Transportation Improvement Project list -- a schedule of transportation construction projects that receives federal, state and local funding -- and was eventually awarded money, Alkhal said.

The replacement has taken a long time, but the new bridge will again open up multiple access points to the neighborhood, Alkhal said.

Northampton County Bridge Superintendent Tom Kohler said the Seidersville Road replacement remains in limbo as it would cost about $10 million to construct a new bridge.

The county is trying to get funding through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation but it remains to be seen if PennDOT will support replacing a bridge on a very narrow road that doesn't see much traffic, Kohler said.

He noted that it could be unlikely given that there's a modern roadway -- Silvex Road and College Drive -- a half-mile to the north with direct access from Mountain Drive to the Interstate 78/Route 412 interchange.

"When, and if, the county would get those transportation funds, then the bridge would be replaced," Kohler said. "There is currently no time frame for knowing when that might take place."

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.

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