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LHVA looks to connect trails to rails in Scranton

Times-Tribune - 10/15/2018

Oct. 15--SCRANTON -- The Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority has plans to connect a trail to rails downtown.

The nonprofit organization aims to create a disabled-accessible connection from the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail along South Seventh Avenue to Steamtown National Historic Site on the eastern side of the river.

"This is a very open-ended project. We're trying to get from the trail to Steamtown and there are several ways to do it," said Owen Worozbyt, LHVA's trail and environmental program manager.

One way may include building a pedestrian bridge over the river, from the former Bridge Street area along South Seventh Avenue to the Cliff Street entrance road of the Electric City Trolley Museum and neighboring Steamtown National Historic Site. This option would require devising a disabled-accessible, gradual incline up the Cliff Street hill.

Another possible route may include accessing sidewalks along South Seventh and Lackawanna avenues to Cliff Street near the intermodal center, and making a pedestrian connection there to a nearby, former underpass tunnel road to the trolley museum end of the Steamtown/museum site.

Going under a rail line, the underpass tunnel -- about 10 feet tall, 15 feet wide and 100 feet long, and its approaches on both sides -- have been blocked off and unused for many years.

The LHVA has $1.3 million in various sources of grant funding for the project, consisting of $1 million estimated for construction and $300,000 estimated for engineering and designs. Some of the funding comes from the federal government via the state and requires Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility.

"We have to get over to Steamtown using ADA access," Worozbyt said. "We have to figure out the best way to do it."

The first step is hiring an engineering firm to devise conceptual and final plans for a pedestrian connection from the trail to the federal Steamtown National Historic Site. Lackawanna County operates the trolley museum.

The LHVA recently sought engineering proposals for the project, according to a public notice in The Times-Tribune in September. Four proposals received by Thursday's deadline and unsealed at the LHVA office on South Seventh Avenue in a public procedure included:

LaBella Engineering, $185,522.

Barry Isett & Associates, $238,317.

Greenman-Pedersen, $254,164.

Reilly Associates, $416,372

The LHVA now will evaluate the proposals and select a firm, possibly in mid-November, Worozbyt said. The organization hopes to have construction start in 2020, he said.

The underpass tunnel is one of several remnants of the city's past in the project area.

The former Bridge Street spur off South Seventh Avenue remains there, but the bridge that used to go over the river is long gone. The bridge had been known over many decades by three different names -- Scranton Street Bridge, Cliff Street Bridge and Bridge Street Bridge, according to archives of The Times-Tribune.

In 1976, the old bridge partially collapsed under the weight of a dump truck hauling asphalt, suspending the truck over a large hole in the span. The bridge was removed in the early 1990s.

A new pedestrian bridge in place of the former vehicular bridge would connect to a former UGI gas manufacturing site, where Lackawanna County officials plan to eventually convert a boomerang-shaped, 7 acres of land into a riverfront park.

The UGI land, called Bridge Street Former Manufactured Gas Plant Site, became home, in the mid-19th century, to a plant that converted coal into "town gas" used to illuminate city streets, cook meals and heat homes until 1954. This river-bend site first needs an environmental remediation cleanup before it can become a county park.

"There's a lot of history down there," Worozbyt said.

For information, see lhva.org and click the link on the right menu for Bridge Project RFP.

Contact the writer:

jlockwood@timesshamrock.com;

570-348-9100 x5185;

@jlockwoodTT on Twitter

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