The scenic drive over Rock City Hill, or the Olean Road, which connects Pennsylvania to New York state will send drivers on detours for the next month until the Route 646 bridge in Foster Township is replaced.
While the detours will help drivers eventually reach their destinations, a couple of business owners on both sides of the state line have noticed fewer customers in the past week following the bridge closure on Friday. In addition, motorists traveling along Derrick Road, or Route 346 from Bradford, and on Route 16 from Olean, N.Y., will not see detour signs for the bridge closure until a mile or more along their routes.
The bridge, which crosses Pennbrook Run, is being replaced through the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project through a partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners. It is expected to be replaced in late August. The detours send drivers through Knapp Creek, N.Y. and Otto Township.
Cindy Smith, who owns Rock City Park in New York state with her husband, Dale, said they have noticed a decline in visitors from Pennsylvania since the closure. Smith said drivers from the Olean area will not see detour signs until they reach the Vista View area on Route 16 before Knapp Creek which is several miles from the South Union Street bridge in Olean.
“They detour (Pennsylvania drivers) through Duke Center and then up Oil Valley Road to Knapp Creek, but it’s quicker really for them to go to Limestone (N.Y.) and come up Nichols Run,” Smith advised.
Smith said she is glad the bridge will be reopened before their annual Gem-Mineral-Fossil Show which is slated for the last weekend in September.
George Hocker, who is the owner of the Derrick City Diner on Route 346 in Foster Township and serves as Foster Township supervisor, admitted his business has gone down “a little,” especially regarding his New York state customers.
“I’m losing business, but I’d much rather lose business than have a car (accident) and someone get killed because the bridge was gone — it was ready to fall in,” Hocker remarked. “(The road crew) is working seven days a week, 12 hours a day” to finish it quickly.
Andy Dressler, Plenary Walsh traffic manager and public information coordinator, said detour signs are not placed at the Foster Brook intersection on East Main Street and Derrick Road in Bradford or near the South Union Street bridge in Olean for a specific reason.
“If you’re putting (detour) signs back at East Main and Route 346 (intersection) we don’t want to do that. We want traffic to go down through and follow the detour once they get down to the Olean Road,” Dressler explained. “We want people to go down (Route 346) and visit the local businesses all the way down through there (before) the detour. We don’t want to say anything in Derrick City is closed — that’s not fair to the businesses.”
He said the detour signs are set a few miles away from the city of Olean on Route 16 for the same reason, which is to ensure businesses continue to have traffic flow.
As for the bridge work, Dressler believes it should be completed by Aug. 24.
