HERSHEY — Bradford Township in McKean County was named the bridge winner of the 35th Annual Road and Bridge Safety Improvement Awards, presented at the 95th Annual Educational Conference of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) in Hershey April 23-26.

The conference attracted attendees from every county in Pennsylvania except Philadelphia, which has no townships. Bradford Township won the award for a bridge replacement project on Lang Maid Lane.

PSATS sponsors the statewide Road and Bridge Safety Improvement Contest each year in partnership with the Pennsylvania Highway Information Association (PHIA) and the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to recognize townships for their extensive contributions of time and effort in making roads and bridges safer.

The township supervisors had become concerned with the condition of the original Lang Maid Lane bridge, which was designated as structurally deficient and functionally obsolete. The 42-foot-long steel bridge’s foundation was damaged due to scouring of the streambed, and the mortar joints in the stone masonry abutments were failing.

Given the deteriorated condition of the bridge and the fact that the road leads to a local assisted living facility, the township determined that a total bridge replacement, rather than rehabilitation, was necessary.

To save time and money, the township decided to use a geosynthetic reinforced soil-integrated bridge system (GRS-IBS) to construct new abutments. This technique uses layers of block walls and fill alternating with layers of geosynthetic fabric to build the abutments.

The new 60-foot-long bridge was completed in about two and a half months, says Jim Erwin, supervisor chairman, and cost the township about $475,000 — a far cry from the more than $1 million a traditional bridge would have cost. A fringe benefit is that the township public works crew learned new skills.