Murrysville Council OKs hauling route adjustment for Sloan 'elementary campus' project

Murrysville Council granted the Franklin Regional School District’s request to allow trucks leaving the Sloan Elementary construction project to use Crowfoot Road as they haul material off-site.

Project engineer John Frydrych of Civil & Environmental Consultants said the request was needed as a result of a 16-foot grade spanning the site from top to bottom.

“There’s a permanent disconnect from the upper level to the lower level,” Frydrych said. “And there’s no interconnection planned. So they’ve lost the ability to take material from the upper level to the lower level and use the (Sardis Road) exit.”

In its initial approval of the project, council did not permit trucks to leave the site using the Crowfoot Road exit, owing in part to concerns from residents in the nearby Murry Woods housing plan. Murry Woods’ entrance is directly across from the construction site’s western access road.

Frydrych said that work time lost due to the covid-19 pandemic, as well as a desire to finish hauling material off-site before school starts in the fall, led to the request.

Councilman Tony Spadaro was not pleased.

“The school board seems to think that everything they want, we have to give them,” he said. “They take everything for granted. And as this thing goes along, they keep coming up with exceptions to the rules.”

Council consensus was that, with students currently learning from home and traffic drastically reduced due to the coronavirus quarantine, allowing trucks to exit onto Crowfoot — albeit with several conditions in place — would put the project on the best course to finish on time.

“I’m not crazy about the district coming back to us with all these changes,” Council President Dayne Dice said. “I think it kind of reopens old wounds. But I also don’t want trucks on the road when it’s time for school to start back up.”

Council voted 5-2 in favor of allowing the adjusted hauling route. Spadaro and Councilman Carl Stepanovich voted no.

Conditions include:

• All removal of excess material — roughly 6,000 cubic yards, Frydrych said — must be completed prior to the start of the 2020-21 school year.

• Municipal engineers will assess the Crowfoot/Longview/access road intersection and determine what must be done to achieve safe sight lines for trucks leaving the site. That includes removal of fencing along Crowfoot Road and relocation of fill material piled along the roadside.

Council also wanted signage and flaggers to be in place to help control traffic in and out of the site.

“Our engineers are going to go up there, see what needs to be done, and the school district is going to need to do it,” Dice said. “That condition is going to be pretty broad.”

Councilwoman Jamie Lee Korns said safety should be the primary concern.

“We have to look at it as: what’s the safest route for those trucks, and from a timeline perspective, what’s safest for our community?” she said.

Councilman Mac McKenna agreed.

“I think if there were flag men in place, I see no reason why that couldn’t work for a couple of months,” he said.