PennDOT’s Ohiopyle project nominated for national award | Progress | heraldstandard.com – Uniontown Herald Standard

The $12.8 million Ohiopyle Multimodal Gateway project, designed to improve safety and promote tourism, is among 12 finalists competing for a national award.

The project included building a pedestrian tunnel from a boat parking lot to the Youghiogeny River and Ohiopyle State Park Visitor Center, and widening Route 381 with shoulders for pedestrians and bicyclists. Route 381 now has continuous sidewalks, on-street parking and a dedicated bike lane. Sugarloaf Road was relocated to improve the grade of the road, reconstruct the boat parking lot with additional spaces and build the pedestrian underpass.

These enhancements improved safety for all visitors, regardless of travel mode, while improving convenience and accessibility to the park for everyone, said a statement from the PennDOT District 12 Progress Report.

The project won a regional award, Americas Transportation Award from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The project was recognized in the category of Quality of Life/Community Development (Small).

The Top 12 finalists will compete for the national grand prize awarded by a panel of judges and for the Peoples Choice Award, selected by online voters.

We hope that Pennsylvanians will turn out to support this project by voting in the competition, PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian said in a statement. This recognition truly reflects the departments hard work to improve the publics enjoyment of this amazing state park.

PennDOT District also completed a number of projects in 2021, including slide repairs at 11 locations in the district, said Melissa Maczko, Acting Safety Press Officer.

Roadway damage from slides continue to be a challenge in southwest Pennsylvania, with more than 12 currently being monitored in the District 12, she said.

A 300-foot wide, 160-foot high slide led to an emergency road closure on U.S. 40 in Wharton Township June 24, with traffic detoured through Confluence for nearly two months.

As many as four pieces of equipment were operating on the hillside as a convoy of 10-12 trucks were loaded with material and transported to a local site. During the process 5,330 truckloads were transported to the dump site amounting to 58,630 cubic yards of material, she said.

Repairs cost about $2 million. The road was reopened August 13.

PennDOT also completed replacement and rehabilitation of two bridges carrying traffic on Route 1051 (Breakneck Road) over Butler Run and Spruce Run for $400,000.

In addition to the many construction projects in District 12, our county maintenance crews working out of 30 stockpiles located in Fayette, Greene, Washington, and Westmoreland counties completed a variety of maintenance activities, she said. These activities included sealcoating 433 miles of roadway, paving 113 miles of roadway, shoulder cutting of 1,362 miles of roadway, line painting of 7,015 line miles of roadway, and spent over 19,463 hours performing litter pick up. Additionally, crews replaced and updated signs, performed mowing operations, slide repairs, and pipe replacements.

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PennDOT's Ohiopyle project nominated for national award | Progress | heraldstandard.com - Uniontown Herald Standard