Route 6 detour work begins
Traffic will pass through residential neighborhoods

Workers from A. L. Blades were widening the intersection at South Main and Maple streets this week to prepare for a Rt. 6 detour to be opened when the Specialist Mike Franklin Memorial Bridge is replaced in the spring.

Some Coudersport residents are getting a preview of the disruption their lives will face in the spring, when all traffic on U.S. Rt. 6 passes by their homes for an extended period of time.

Construction workers from contractor A. L. Blades & Sons Inc. of Hornell, N.Y., last week began widening curbs and making other arrangements to accommodate tractor-trailers and all other vehicles through a residential section of the borough.

Most of Maple Street and Oak Street will become oneway, while Mill Street will carry two-way traffic diverted from Rt. 6.

That is the designated detour for a period of about four months beginning in the spring, due to the replacement of the Specialist Mike Franklin Memorial Bridge. The bridge, which carries U.S. Rt. 6 over the Allegheny River on Coudersport's East Second Street, has been found to be substandard.

PennDOT recently confirmed that the work, originally scheduled to start this month, has been postponed until April.

A project of this magnitude will have many ramifications. All traffic that would normally pass through the Coudersport business district westbound on Rt. 6 will be re-routed onto Mill Street up the hill to Oak, where it will turn right and rejoin Rt. 6 at the South Main Street intersection.

Eastbound Rt. 6 traffic will be detoured onto Maple Street and up the hill to Mill Street, unless the motorist intends to connect with northbound Rt. 44-49 at the intersection of Main and Second streets. All other traffic will travel down Mill Street and rejoin Rt. 6 at the East Second Street intersection.

Several business owners in the downtown area are concerned about the impact the bridge work will have on them. One has already relocated to the Port Allegany Road on the borough's west end.

The new bridge will carry the same name as the current structure. It was dedicated last October to Specialist Michael Franklin, a Coudersport native who was killed by a roadside bomb in 2005 while serving in Iraq.

PennDOT will continue to monitor the bridge's condition. It may be necessary to impose a weight limit on the structure before next April.