TPD was selected by PennDOT District 5-0 to complete the design of the replacement of the Cedar Crest Boulevard Bridge over Little Cedar Creek in the City of Allentown and South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County. The project involved the replacement of an existing single span structure carrying the intersection of Cedar Crest Boulevard (SR 1019), Broadway (SR 2008), and Parkway Boulevard (T-817) over Little Cedar Creek with a new single span bridge. Complicating this structure was that fact that it extended diagonally through the intersection, with beams normal to the substructure, thus creating significant concerns with staged construction, while minimizing impact to the vehicular traffic.

The span of the existing structure was 70-feet, while the width or out to out of the structure was approximately 188-feet due to the alignment through this complex intersection. Further complicating this design, because of the extreme volumes of traffic that utilize Cedar Crest Boulevard, as well as the intersecting Parkway Boulevard and Broadway, PennDOT and the local municipalities required that two lanes of traffic be maintained on Cedar Crest Boulevard at all times, while allowing closures of Broadway and Parkway Boulevard. In addition, the closures of these side roads had to be minimized, and therefore TPD designed the replacement to utilize Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) techniques for the new structure, to keep the two stages of construction to within a 2 to 3 month total duration. TPD utilized a triple-cell precast box culvert to accomplish this challenging project within the tight constraints of the project, as well as the schedule constraints.

TPD was required to undergo significant utility coordination with various above ground and underground utility relocations required. In addition, with adjacent 6(f) park properties located on two of the four quadrants, environmental efforts were intense to progress this project through the environmental clearance and permitting process.

TPD’s responsibilities on this project included the completion of all engineering and environmental tasks for the bridge replacement, including: