Gateway project on schedule at Balls Bend
Butler County commissioners, PennDOT officials and representatives from Cranberry Township met Wednesday afternoon to discuss progress on the Balls Bend Realignment Project, part of the Gateway 228 project in Middlesex Township.
On May 10, steel girders were delivered to the site, which will be part of the new 180-foot-long bridge at Balls Bend.
“This piece here, the setting of the girders is a big deal,” said Mark Gordon, Butler County chief of economic development and planning. “This is the alignment piece that takes out the bend.”
The bridge will have nine girders, which were shipped in two pieces due to their length.
Over the years, safety became a big concern in the area as Balls Bend has seen a large number of accidents.
“For 40 years the communities have tried to eliminate something that has resulted in fatalities,” Gordon said. “There is lots of traffic, lots of economic activity, roughly $28 billion worth of economic impact.”
“This area had extremely high crash rates.”
In relation to the safety concerns, the Gateway project is trying to reduce the drivers who make left-hand turns, which subjects drivers to heavy traffic congestion.
“They will have to go to a jughandle,” county commissioner Leslie Osche said. “They have to go past the business, and then there is a turnaround that brings them to a traffic light. Then you make the left at the traffic light.”
According to documents on the county website, Route 228 saw more than 14,000 vehicles a day with pickup trucks accounting for 8% of the traffic in 2017.
PennDOT collected data between 2013 and 2017 and reported 82 crashes on Route 228 within the Balls Bend area.
“One thing when you get federal build money is you have to create a performance report,” Lynn Colosi of Delta Development Group said. “In that performance report, which I wrote, you provide all the crash data before construction.
“Then, after construction is over, we have to measure the success of our performance over a five-year period.”
The speed limit at Balls Bend meets the criteria of a 40-mph zone, with winding curves that contribute sight distance issues in the area, according to the county website.
“Not only is the roadway supposed to improve safety, but it’s going to enable development of all these vacant partials of land,” Colosi said.
The widening of the roadway will require more land for the project, but local residents should not be worried, Colosi said.
“When projects like this occur, the public entities involved in the project try to take as little of private land as possible,” she said.
The $26.5 million safety improvement is anticipated to be completed by early 2025.
In the early stages of the project, it was reported construction would run into the summer of that year.
“That surprised me that they are a little ahead of schedule,” commissioner Kevin Boozel said. “I figured materials would be holding them back and personnel.”
“Any remaining materials and supplies can be a challenge,” Gordon added. “I don't think anything right now are show stoppers.”
