Bridge construction ahead on the Walt Whitman

An ambitious $128 million project to rebuild the deck of the Walt Whitman Bridge, approved Wednesday by the Delaware River Port Authority, will create traffic headaches for the next four years on the busiest toll bridge in the Philadelphia region.

Preliminary work on the 53-year-old bridge will start in August, followed by re-decking that will continue until the summer of 2014, DRPA officials said.

The board of the bistate agency approved the $128 million contract to replace the deck, and install parapets and a movable barrier to separate eastbound and westbound traffic. The contract was awarded to American Bridge Co. of Coraopolis, Pa.

The board also approved an $11.7 million contract to monitor the construction, awarded to a joint venture of Urban Engineers Inc. and URS Corp. of Philadelphia.

Construction crews will take out one lane of traffic at a time beginning early next year, DRPA Chief Executive John Matheussen said.

"We've worked real hard to try to inconvenience the traveling public as little as possible," Matheussen said.

The Walt Whitman, which carried nearly 40 million vehicles last year, is the busiest of the four Delaware River toll bridges operated by the DRPA between Philadelphia and South Jersey. Opened to traffic on May 16, 1957, it is the second oldest of the bridges, about 31 years newer than the Ben Franklin Bridge.

The Whitman and Franklin bridges are both deemed "functionally obsolete" because of their age and some outdated design features.

The contract includes financial bonuses for early completion and penalties for finishing late, so the DRPA hopes the work will be done before the end of the three-year, 10-month contract, Matheussen said.

The long-planned bridge work is part of a five-year capital budget being paid for with toll increases. The first of two scheduled toll increases went into effect in September 2008, when car tolls were raised to $4 from $3. The second toll increase, to $5, is scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2011.

The construction will replace the steel decking and asphalt paving, as well electrical and communication cables and existing drainage structures.

The repairs of the Whitman will be more expensive than the bridge itself cost when it was built. The cost of construction of the seven-lane, 11,981-foot-long bridge in 1957 was $86.9 million.

In other business Wednesday, the DRPA board agreed for the third time in five years to provide $1.75 million to repair an old freight rail line in Salem County. The work has yet to be done and the money has not been spent, but the job has gotten smaller each time.

In 2005, the DRPA said it would provide the $1.75 million to help rebuild 17 miles of the West Jersey Shore Line between Swedesboro and Salem. At that time, citing derailments and broken rails, the agency said the "rail is clearly at the end of its useful life and must be replaced." At that time, the total cost was estimated at $11 million.

By 2009, the estimated cost had doubled to $22 million, and the DRPA said its $1.75 million could be used for 4.25 miles of the most crucial rail work.

On Wednesday, the board agreed with a request from Salem County that its $1.75 million contribution be used on just a two-mile section of dilapidated rail.

DRPA Vice Chairman Jeff Nash said the DRPA had considered withdrawing its funding support, since the work had not been done and the money had not been spent in five years. But, he said, "we have been assured by Salem County that it's important to their region and it supports 1,000 jobs." He said two major local manufacturers rely on the railroad.

With the latest approval, "I suspect [the money] will be used very, very soon," Matheussen said.