Philo Bridge Update
ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Muskingum County Engineer’s Office is far enough in the Philo bridge plans and scheduling to have a better estimate of what needs to happen to have the bridge replaced.
County Engineer, Doug Davis said a part of the bridge’s funding was raised in an accepted grant of 5 million dollars through their local Nation Association of County Engineers. The total estimate for the bridge being about 18 million dollars, the bridge is now considered a local major so the federal funds and Department of Transportation will provide money towards the total cost. Davis said ordinarily the federal funds pay 80% and 20% is local.
“The federal people and the D.O.T. people have graciously come to us and saw what our need is with this structure and it’s a rather pricey tag and they have agreed to instead of 20% local match have a 5% local match,” said Davis.
Davis said with the local dollars having to match only 5% now, this has taken it from paying over 4 million dollars down to about 2 million dollars.
The location of the new structure will be parallel to the current bridge and according to Davis it will be just down south of the river.
“We’re working on the logistics of the  intersections, traffic control, and line grated typical for how’s the storm water going to get off the bridge,” said Davis. “What do we interfere in with the locals with in sanitary man holes  and water lines such as that in the area.
The new bridge will be two lanes wide with a six-foot shoulder minimum on each side. Davis also stated their will be a concrete barrier separating the bridge from a walkway.
The construction on the new Philo bridge was also originally slated for 2019. However, Davis said the D.O.T. stepped in to have the construction started sooner.
“Construction will start in 2018. So we will be moving this one year forward and you think about that,” Davis said. “This is January 2017, the job will be sold, it will be two-year construction. So it will be in the summer of 2018, you will start to see construction of the new structure.”
Davis said there are still things they need to figure out with the lock and dam system there and they’ll work with O.D.N.R. to relocate the water species during construction.
