Long-awaited Route 356 project begins in Allegheny Township; little disruption expected
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Whether it’s the numerous traffic accidents or rescuing his wife after her car hit black ice caused by poor drainage, Allegheny Township Supervisor Ren Steele and many others are thrilled to see the Route 356 widening project finally begin.
“It’s been a team effort,” Steele said of past supervisors, residents and public officials.
“The road project will make the township a safer place,” he said.
Some township officials and residents have been lobbying for the $15 million to $20 million project for more than a dozen years.
The two-year project is in progress this spring to widen, realign and recontour a 1.4-mile section of Route 356 from the Freeport Bridge to White Cloud Road. It includes adding two lanes each way from the bridge to just about Crain Road.
There’s a bonus for the 10,000 to 15,000 motorists who drive the stretch daily: no road or lane closures.
However, some short, intermittent lane closures might be in the offing.
With his family settling in Allegheny Township in 1824, Steele, who lives on a farm off White Cloud Road, remembers as a boy riding his bike down Route 356 across the Freeport Bridge into Freeport.
“When they built Route 28, everything just got real busy,” he said.
Then there’s Route 356 that was built when Model Ts were on the road, said Steele, 70.
The hilly terrain mixed with residential roads off Route 356 makes for some “dangerous intersections,” according to Steele, including Indian Hill, Bagdad, Williams and Armstrong roads.
That work will be tackled in another Route 356 project.
Work under way
Trees have been taken down while utilities are in the process of moving their lines away from Route 356 to make way for the extra lanes. Crews are clearing areas for temporary and road expansions near the Freeport Bridge and White Cloud Road, according to Jim Kettering, PennDOT construction project manager.
A new sediment pond has been installed near Crain Road to collect runoff from the road.
The project will include a two-way, left-turn lane between Crain Road and Key Lane. About 2,000 feet of new road will be laid to replace the first steep, sharp bend from the Freeport Bridge into Allegheny Township.
The project was designed in six phases with contractors working on one side of the road at a time while keeping one lane open in each direction, according to Kettering.
While crews are near River Forest Country Club and the top of the hill for now, during the summer they will work on another section of the road to expand after that.
They will stop work on the actual road between Nov. 1 and April 1, 2020, Kettering said. In the winter, crews can still work on widening and other work on the sides of Route 356.
The project should be completed by December 2020.
Another project in works
A second phase of the project is expected to begin next year: improvement of another section of Route 356, about 3.5 miles from White Cloud Road to Pleasant Hill Road.
The project, known as the Route 356 Safety Corridor Project, is in the preliminary planning phase.
PennDOT is examining the sight lines of the intersections where hills might be scraped to improve safety.