One could drive the entire length of the Eastern Seaboard from the Maine/Canadian border to Key West, Florida, on U.S. 1. The route is highly traveled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and its surrounding suburbs. Along a section of U.S. 1 in Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and general contractor J.D. Eckman Inc. are currently in the middle of a project to replace aging bridges and add lanes to the expressway.
The U.S. 1 Improvement Project covers a 6-mile stretch of the expressway, which is described by the PennDOT website as a "suburban regional arterial/limited-access freeway” that provides “access to residential communities and commercial and industrial developments."
The corridor was constructed in the 1940s, and PennDOT updated parts of it in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the design was outdated. The corridor experiences significant congestion and safety issues due to the aging infrastructure. There are accident clusters and high incident rates on the interchange ramps and little room for merging. The bridges are also aging and reaching the end of their service life.
According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's website, the corridor features "a patchwork of filled-in potholes, ramps that leave little room to merge, an overpass with low vertical clearance, and outdated median barriers [that] make the drive unpleasant and sometimes scary. Backups are common and the area has long outgrown the 60-year-old highway. For over a decade local officials talked about the need to modernize this critical artery and bring it up to today's mobility and safety standards."
PennDOT divided the project into three sections, each being a separate project.
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"We split the project into three sections to allow more contractors the opportunity to bid as well as limit the project size and cost," said Ken Yerges, an Assistant Vice President of JMT, which is acting as a prime design consultant for PennDOT.
The project's first section was completed in December 2022, and the third section is in the preliminary design phase. The second section began at the end of 2021 and is nearing completion.
Sections one and two cover a 2.5-mile corridor. These sections of U.S. 1 have an average daily traffic of 90,000, including considerable truck traffic. The team is adding one travel lane in each direction to take the expressway to three lanes in each section. The project also involves adding acceleration and deceleration lanes along 2 miles of the corridor. The team is replacing three bridges, including one that spans a creek.
Every infrastructure job on an active, busy roadway must determine how they will handle traffic control. How can they minimize the disruption to the driving public and keep the crew as safe as possible?
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On section two of the U.S. 1 Improvement Project, the team performed most of the work that impacted travel on weekends and nights, according to John Muir, Project Manager for J.D. Eckman.
So far, the team has worked around the clock on three weekends. This is because two of the bridges being replaced are over Septa (Philadelphia area public transport system) and CSX rail lines.
"We were permitted three weekend outages from Septa and PECO [Philadelphia Electric Company]," Muir said. "However, we couldn't turn off CSX, so we had to be aware when they went through."
The work around railroad bridges was complex. There are overhead cat wires and PECO transmission wires. The team replaced catenary towers.
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"The outages were necessary as it enabled us to safely erect girders for the bridges below the transmission wires and above the catenary tower," said Tom Kerins, Construction Manager with Urban Engineers.
The team ran into another challenge while replacing the bridge over Neshaminy Creek. The over 40-mile-long Neshaminy Creek empties into the Delaware River. The creek is about 3 feet deep, though at some points it deepens to 5 to 6 feet deep.
The team installed a three-span, 600-foot-long structure over Neshaminy Creek. They installed a causeway and cofferdam to work in the way — standard for working in water.
The issue arose when Hurricane Ida hit the Philadelphia area around Labor Day in 2021. Winds up to 130 mph were felt in the region, and significant flooding occurred. The Schuylkill River, which is in the city, experienced a storm surge of 16.35 feet — the highest recorded since 1869, according to the National Weather Service.
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Neshaminy Creek also flooded. "Despite being adequately designed, water got up over the causeway," Yerges said. "We had to stop work for a brief period while the waters receded."
J.D. Eckman, headquartered about 60 miles from the project location, has a good working relationship with PennDOT. According to Muir, the firm works almost exclusively with the department.
"This is a project that fit perfectly into our wheelhouse," he said.
The project is a fit because it includes lots of rock excavation, and Eckman owns a crushing plant. They brought it to the project site. "We recycled the old concrete and incorporated the materials into the new road," Muir said.
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"Eckman is a great outfit, and their personnel are outstanding," Kerins said.
Section two of the U.S. 1 Improvement Project was initially scheduled to be completed in August 2026. However, Muir expects the project to be completed early despite the delays that Hurricane Ida caused.
"There are great relationships between Eckman and PennDOT," Muir said. "The designer also deserves credit for the project being ahead of schedule."
Other factors that boosted the schedule include the revised traffic control allowing the team to work on multiple areas simultaneously and the adjacent project (section 1) finishing early.
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"Once section 1 was completed, we were able to put resources on the south end and east end," Muir said.
"There were ripple effects when the adjacent project completed,” Kerins said. “The conflict at the interface point disappeared, which left Eckman a larger area for staging."
The construction budget for the project is $110.9 million. It is being financed via the traditional 80/20 split, with the federal government paying the former and the state government paying the latter.
Muir said that the project is on budget for the original scope. However, work was added due to Hurricane Ida.
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There have also been some unforeseen circumstances. An alternative design was required due to the project being located up against an environmentally sensitive area. To avoid impacting the area, which would have required remediation that could drag on for years, the team designed and constructed a retaining wall to keep the project out of the sensitive area. This addition cost approximately $1.5 million.
Another change that impacted the budget was the pier near the railroad, which needed to be adjusted.
"Originally, it was supposed to be two piers, but when we put in the second pier, it went much deeper than the first," Kerins said. "So, we had to redesign the bridge and make it piers to obtain the proper balance."
When this section of the U.S. 1 Improvement Project is completed, drivers will experience reduced congestion. The widened middle shoulder — previously 1 foot — will be 12 to 14 feet, giving drivers more room to maneuver. The acceleration and deceleration lanes will give drivers more time for decision-making. Each of these changes will improve safety along the corridor. The new structures also mean that PennDOT personnel will need to spend less time on repair.
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- Owner: Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
- General Contractor: J.D. Eckman, Atglen, Pennsylvania
- Designer: JMT, York, Pennsylvania
- Engineer: Urban Engineers, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Other Key Contractors:Kuharchik Construction, LLC, Exeter, Pennsylvania; Eastern Steel Constructors, Fallston, Maryland; Mattiola Services, LLC, Skippack, Pennsylvania; Collinson Inc., Uwchland, Pennsylvania; Kempton Excavating, Kempton, Pennsylvania; Shelly Foundations, Inc., Avonmore, Pennsylvania; Beeghly Tree, LLC, Somerset, Pennsylvania
