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Commuters should regain use of the 16th Street Bridge by Sept. 15 and not face the next major Allegheny River bridge closing until early 2005, when PennDOT plans to rehabilitate the decrepit 31st Street Bridge.

The county contractor on the 16th Street Bridge, closed since early last November, is on schedule to partly reopen the 80-year-old span by Sept. 15. Meanwhile, the start of the 31st Street Bridge work has been pushed back about three months into early 2005.

GASA Inc. must reopen one lane in each direction on the 16th Street Bridge by midnight Sept. 14 or face daily $10,000 fines by Allegheny County, which hired the company for the $9.8 million project. The contractor then has until Nov. 1 to complete the remaining work, which includes rebuilding the sidewalk and painting the span's underside.

The rainy weather this year has strained GASA's work schedule, creating some doubt the company can meet the Sept. 15 deadline and reopen the span to the approximately 10,000 motorists who drive it daily. Officials at GASA's Plum office declined to comment on Friday.

"Right now, it's still scheduled for the mid-September reopening," said Don Killmeyer, the county's chief engineer. "They will be reopening the bridge to one lane in each direction.

"The contractor had the same weather that everybody else had this year," he said. "Some projects were affected by the weather and had to switch their schedules around."

The bridge renovation includes repairs to the steel structure, replacing concrete, rebuilding the sidewalks and a coat of paint. Eighty percent of the project's cost will be covered by federal highway money, with 15 percent from the state and the remaining 5 percent from the county.

PennDOT plans to hire a contractor to renovate the ailing 31st Street Bridge in January 2005, meaning the bridge will close and work will begin soon after, according to project engineer Todd Kravits. The project is a few months behind schedule because an environmental approval took longer than anticipated, he said.

The contract initially was to be awarded in mid-September 2004, Kravits said. Even then, construction likely would not have started until early 2005 because of winter weather, he said.

The rehabilitation is estimated to cost at least $7 million.

"We had a slight slippage of a few months, which isn't going to delay the project," Kravits said. "All the contractor would have been doing is ordering equipment, steel and getting things ready for the spring."

It's likely work on the 31st Street Bridge will be completed in fall of 2005, as originally scheduled, he said.

The bridge was built in 1928 and links Route 28 near the Troy Hill section of the city with the upper end of the Strip District. It also provides access to Washington's Landing.

Repairs on the 40th Street Bridge are scheduled to be completed in early November. PennDOT budgeted $1.1 million to make the repairs, which have restricted traffic on the Allegheny River crossing.

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