SELINSGROVE— PennDOT is gathering more feedback from the public for the Central Susquehanna Valley Transportation Project’s south section. PennDOT held their second meeting of the CSVT south section Thursday night to present three preliminary alternatives routes for the highway and the so called ‘Route 61 Connector. The alternatives are needed to avoid construction on the two nearby fly ash waste basins.
The three alternative routes have been developed from feedback received from the last public meeting in February. Matt Beck, PennDOT Assistant Plans Engineer says community feedback and environmental studies will be vital in the decision making, “The feedback we get and the studies will give us more information that we will ultimately use to determine which route is the best route overall. The studies will cover the engineering side of things as well as the environmental side of things and all that information will be considered as we come up with the best route.”
To reduce impacts on residents, farmlands and other resources, the CSVT was proposed to cross the old PPL ash basins in the late 1990’s. Back then PennDOT engineers believed the water levels in the basin would drop and construction would be feasible. The 2016 final design revealed the issue.
Beck spoke about the difficulties of finding an alternative route saying, “Farmlands, residential areas, other environmental resources, existing utilities that are in the area. So, there are a lot of considerations that come into play when finding the best route.”
After detailed engineering and environmental studies are completed, PennDOT will hold another public meeting in the fall says, Beck. “Our big picture schedule is that we hope to have a preferred alternative for avoiding the ash basins by the end of this year, by the fall. There will be some design time needed and really we don’t even anticipate starting the right of way accusation process until about the second half of 2018.”
The southern section connects Route 15 south of Winfield to 11/15 north of Selinsgrove with a connector from the Veterans Memorial Bridge. You can view pictures of design changes at CSVT.com (Sarah Benek)
