PennDOT opens Ridge Ave. ramp to City Ave. today, closes ramp to Lincoln Drive

This afternoon, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will reopen the rebuilt Ridge Avenue ramp to southbound City Avenue, or Route 1, in the city’s East Falls section.

As that ramp opens up, the adjacent Ridge Avenue ramp to Lincoln Drive will close for reconstruction. PennDOT says drivers will be detoured over Ridge Avenue, Calumet Street and Kelly Drive until the ramp opens up in late November.

The Ridge Avenue ramp to City Avenue was closed in January for the reconstruction and replacement of the former structurally deficient bridge over northbound Kelly Drive.

The bridge was one of four structurally deficient structures at the Gustine Lake Interchange to be replaced as part of PennDOT’s $20.2 million interchange improvement project.  A fifth bridge was removed and not replaced.

The interchange will also be revamped with new lighting, new sign structures with new directional signs, eight bio-retention basins, 300 new trees and shrubs and a stone finish on bridge columns and walls.

Funding for this project comes from $13.7 million in federal ARRA funds and more than $6 million in other federal funds.

PennDOT says all of the bridges were built in the early 1960s and carry nearly 100,000 drivers a day between City Avenue, Lincoln Drive, Kelly Drive and Ridge Avenue.

The entire project is scheduled to be completed in December.