DARKWATER - An area along Route 61 south between Frackville and Saint Clair has a shoulder that is falling away and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation plans to fix the situation in a multi-million-dollar project.
Ron Young, press officer for PennDOT District 5, Allentown, said that along that stretch of road, there is a rock pinnacle or outcropping that engineers may have designed the road to be built around, but the road was built decades ago and nobody currently at PennDOT knows exactly why it was designed that way.
With the roadway and shoulder falling away, Young said that at some point, gabion baskets - large blocks of wire-held gravel or stone - were installed in an attempt to stabilize and support the roadway.
"The slope in that location is being eroded away and washed out by a stream cutting into the embankment," Young said.
With the passage of Act 89 of 2013, the state's comprehensive transportation funding package, PennDOT plans to begin design engineering this summer to address this section of Route 61, Young said.
"The project limits will go from just outside Saint Clair borough to Frackville borough and calls for a full reconstruction of the road," Young said. "The cost estimate is $33.5 million." PennDOT has no estimate at this time as to when construction will begin, according to Young.