Farrandsville Road project likely on hold

LOCK HAVEN - All of the area road construction projects, especially the Route 220 improvements, along with a state "money crunch" may leave the much anticipated Farrandsville Road straightening project on hold.

PennDOT Clinton County Maintenance Manager Pete Smeltz said he and other local officials met earlier this month with Kevin Kline, PennDOT district engineer, over the proposed $9 million project to straighten out Farrandsville Road.

When the project when first envisioned about 10 years ago, it was to straighten out about four miles of road from Veterans Bridge. That plan has been halved with work now to go only about two miles to the entrance of Lock Haven University baseball field and West Branch Soccer Club soccer complex, Smeltz said.

"(Kline) said they're running into a situation where they are putting money into the Route 220 project from Salona to Pine Creek and the only area they could find the money needed is to take it from the Farrandsville Road project," Smeltz said, emphasizing that no official decision has yet been made and if the Farrandsville Road project is put off the table now, it could be back on in a few years.

Smeltz called the situation a "money crunch" in Harrisburg with most of the funding going toward bridge safety projects across the Commonwealth.

He said the Farrandsville project is expensive because it involves removing part of a mountain.

"That is very costly," Smeltz said. "There are huge expenses involved in cutting into the side of a mountain. It's just like the Ice Mine Cut ( Route 120). These roads are crooked for a reason."

Because of the statewide budget crunch, Smeltz said PennDOT is being asked to "watch our pennies."

"We have to have priorities for these projects and invest the money where it's needed the most. Bridges continue to receive a high focus," he said.

Smeltz described it as a "right-sizing process. It boils down to looking at the project, how much money you have to spend and the benefits the public will realize from the project to see whether it is worth it."

"We are going through that right-sizing process this summer," he said. "(The Farrandsville Road project) had an estimated cost of $9 million. Are there other greater needs? Is that that best use of our funds. We'll be sitting down with the engineers in the next couple of weeks to look at what we need," he said.

Smeltz said the Route 220 project is the county's most pressing need at this point, but there are not enough available funds to pave it this year. Money freed up by not doing the Farrandsville project may be redirected into the Route 220 work, he said.

Karen Michael, assistant district executive for design at PennDOT's district office in Clearfield, agreed, saying the skyrocketing costs of asphalt and steel have increased the Farrandsville Road project's estimate from $9 million to $12 million.

"There's not enough money to do it as we have it designed," she said. "We're going to hold off on constructing this improvement until we right size it."

She said the plans now are to do all the proposed improvements from Veterans Bridge to Riverview Park, with less improvements from the park to the soccer and baseball fields.

"The plans are to take the bank off the right-hand side and put a bike trail on the river side. That won't change. But, from the park to the Lock Haven fields, we were going to take other embankments and widen the road there, but now we'll go back on alignment sooner to save some costs," Michael said.

She said the project was on for the 2009 federal fiscal year, but will likely be delayed until the 2011 fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. Along with the Route 220 work, Smeltz said a diamond interchange at the Belles Springs intersection is another high-priority item for his agency.

"There's strong movement from the Economic Partnership and the county commissioners. They are lobbying to get the people to provide money for that," he said. "We need to look at all these things together and see if we can find the money."