Chester and Bucks County Bridge Survey A Pilot Project Resulting from the Recommendations of the...
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- Slide 1
- Chester and Bucks County Bridge Survey A Pilot Project
Resulting from the Recommendations of the Bridge Task Force. Keith
T. Heinrich
- Slide 2
- PennDOT Has Some History with Bridges Covered Bridges of
Chester County Thematic Resources (TR) (1980) Resources (TR) (1980)
Highway Bridges Owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, DOT TR
(1988) Pennsylvania, DOT TR (1988) Pennsylvania Historic Bridge
Inventory and Evaluation (1997) Numerous other individual bridge
reports
- Slide 3
- Why Are We Here? Several trends converge: Pennsylvania has a
lot of historic bridges Pennsylvania has a lot of structurally
deficient bridges Engineers like predictability There was a belief
that the Lichtenstein Survey accounted for only engineering
significance
- Slide 4
- The Solution June 2008: PennDOT Deputy Secretary Rick Hogg
meets with several concerned members of the public June/July 2008:
Deputy Secretary Hogg calls for the creation of a Contextual Bridge
Preservation Task Force September 2008-February 2009: The Task
Force holds nine meetings May/June 2009: PennDOT Bureau of Design
reviews the Task Forces recommendations September 2009: Task Force
report is prepared
- Slide 5
- Results of the Bridge Task Force 1. Examine all bridges (50
years or older) within listed or eligible historic districts and
determine whether they are contributing or not 2. Create a context
statement with which to evaluate bridges for Criterion A
significance
- Slide 6
- The Pre-Pilot Figure out what was do-able within our staffing
and funding constraints Picked several listed districts and checked
their inventories against the bridges which were within their
boundaries Examined current aerials to evaluate whether there were
potential rural historic districts that bridges could contribute
to. Swamp Road Bridge, Bucks County (Key #091984)
- Slide 7
- Results of the Pre-Pilot 1. We found that there were a number
of bridges over 50 years old that were: Not accounted for in the
historic district inventories Not mapped in CRGIS Not discussed by
Lichtenstein in terms of their contributing status 2. Using aerials
to find rural historic districts was time- consuming and ultimately
unproductive
- Slide 8
- The Current Project Fieldwork Portion Based on the results of
our pre-pilot we: Decided to update our CRGIS with all PennDOT
bridge losses and replacements since the Lichtenstein Survey
Decided that we needed good locational and descriptive data for all
bridges in Chester County Decided to look primarily at bridges that
were 50 years old or very close to 50 years old Decided to use the
power of GIS to map all listed and eligible historic districts in
Chester County and to select and pull out all bridges 50 years or
older that were within these districts Decided to field check all
bridges selected from the above
- Slide 9
- A Sample Map
- Slide 10
- The Current ProjectContext Portion Based on the Task Forces
recommendations we: Are holding 2 public meetings in Chester County
(and 2 in Bucks County) to solicit input from preservationists,
historians, etc. on what would make a bridge eligible for Criterion
A. Are hiring a consultant to create the context. The second
invitation-only public meeting will be held after this
meeting.
- Slide 11
- Anticipated Outcomes 1. Update CRGIS with all
losses/replacements of bridges 2. Update CRGIS with the status of
bridges in listed and eligible historic districts prepare report 3.
Create a context to facilitate the Criterion A evaluation of
Bridges Based on both the public meetings and the consultants
research
- Slide 12
- The End?