Youngwood braces for 'traffic nightmare' with water, sewer line replacement project

Youngwood residents soon will live the highway construction mantra of “temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.” All four lanes of Route 119 will be torn apart to install new water and sewer lines, followed by PennDOT’s reconstruction of the borough’s main north-south thoroughfare.

“It’s going to be a traffic nightmare for two years,” Thomas Ceraso, assistant manager for the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County, told more than 170 people on Wednesday at the Youngwood Fire Hall. “Route 119 is a major artery. When you take it down a lane (by restricting traffic), it will be a big impact.”

About 24,000 vehicles on average travel Route 119 in Youngwood each day, according to PennDOT.

Jet Jack Inc. of Oakdale, which was awarded a $7.2 million contract to replace water and sewer lines under the highway, is scheduled to begin work in March. The project will start on Third Street, from the Hillis Street intersection to the traffic signal at Burton Avenue, Ceraso said.

The second phase on the northbound lanes is scheduled to begin this summer. Lines will be replaced from Hillis Street to the Proscape landscaping company, where Third and Fourth streets meet. Work on Fourth Street, which carries Route 119 southbound through Youngwood, will start in 2021.

Rather than placing new lines in the same spot, Ceraso said they will be buried under the parking areas of the highway. In some cases, manhole covers also will be moved.

Mayor Kris Long assured residents the project will be better for the borough in the long run, “something we have been waiting for a long time.”

“The key word is ‘patience,’” Long said.

Kathy Bittner of Third Street said her water and sewer lines will be replaced in the second phase of the project.

“It’ll be really nice when it’s done. Youngwood really needed an update,” Bittner said.

Ceraso said he anticipates there will be only minor delays in water service for residents living along the construction zone, possibly only five minutes. The lines will be connected to residents’ service lines after the new lines are filled with water, pressurized and tested for bacteria, Ceraso said. Connecting the new sewer lines to existing sewer service lines should cause little disruption, Ceraso said.

Residents will have the option of replacing their service lines with new ones, Ceraso said, but that would be done at the homeowner’s expense.

PennDOT does not anticipate getting started rebuilding the highway until June or July, according to Bill Kovach, District 12 assistant executive for construction. The project will run into the 2022 construction season, said Kovach.

With an estimated cost of up to $25 million, the project will include updated sidewalks with handicapped-accessible curb ramps and “chicanes” — slight curves in the edge of the road — that force motorists to weave back and forth and, hopefully, slow down.

The state is paying for about 75 percent of the planned work.