Tarentum Bridge closing spurs more foot traffic across the span

Allison Ohara has been walking across the Tarentum Bridge to work most days since its closure June 9.

As a single mother, she said, she has no other choice.

“The only way I can get to work is from this bridge,” she said Wednesday while trudging across the bridge past construction workers. “I can’t afford to be off (work).”

Ohara, 32, of West Tarentum works at a Wendy’s fast food restaurant on the opposite side of the bridge from her home.

“Not fun,” Ohara said. “Why couldn’t they work on this during the quarantine when people didn’t depend on this bridge as much?”

The bridge is closed as a part of a $3.4 million bridge rehabilitation project.

Many residents of the area were forced to make inconvenient adjustments to their commutes as a result of the temporary bridge closure. The walkway has remained open.

Some people living on the Tarentum side who don’t have a car walk across the bridge to get to the Giant Eagle supermarket on the New Kensington side. Tarentum and nearby towns don’t have a food market.

Neither the Port Authority of Allegheny County on the Tarentum side nor Westmoreland County Transit Authority on the New Ken side has a bus route that crosses the bridge.

The New Kensington-bound lanes reopened Sunday, and the other side, which takes traffic into Tarentum is expected to reopen June 27.

As part of the project, workers on the bridge are tasked with installing new paving material on the bridge deck, steel repairs, bearing and expansion dam replacement, concrete substructure repairs, and painting of selected areas.

Brackenridge resident Angel Miller, 40, said she is worried about the condition of the sidewalk now that many depend on it to make it to their destinations. She frequently walks across the bridge for leisure.

“The sidewalk is worse than the (bridge deck)” Miller said. “… It’s not safe for many in the community to have to use it use it every day.”

Repairing the sidewalk in addition to the bridge seemed like a sensible idea to people walking across on Wednesday. The sidewalk contains rusted holes through the concrete and metal support — some large enough to expose views of the Allegheny River below.

PennDOT spokeswoman Yasmeen Manyisha said the sidewalk will not be repaired in its entirety as part of the current project.

“There may be a couple minor repairs to the sidewalk in that area,” Manyisha said.

The closure has presented difficulties for others like Richard Troup, 50. He was on his way Wednesday to visit his elderly mother at her home in Tarentum.

“I can’t drive across to see my mom, she can’t handle the walk,” Troup said during his trek .

He said the detour route was too much of a financial strain to drive.

“People with low-income can’t afford to do this for long,” he said.

Caden Kowaski, 14, said he was on his way Wednesday to meet his father, who usually drives him across the bridge.

He was undeterred.

“It’s not too bad,” he said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”