A portion of Kiester Road close to Route 8 will be closed from Oct. 21 through 26 while Butler County works to repair and perform maintenance on a bridge within its jurisdiction.
On the East end of Kiester Road, roughly half of a mile from Route 8, is where the repairs will take place according to Butler County Bridge and Fleet Director Kevin Gray.
“It shouldn’t take more than week,” Gray said, noting that the county wanted to ensure enough time for the repair. “We’ll probably be out of there by Thursday.”
Gray said this is part of a temporary replacement of studs and other structures to maintain the bridge until next year.
“After school’s out next year we are going to replace it,” he said. “We are doing it all in conjunction with the Multimodal Transportation Fund,” Gray said, but he noted that this portion is not directly a part of the project.
The Multimodal Transportation Fund (MTF) seeks to provide “grants to encourage economic development and ensure that a safe and reliable system of transportation is available to the residents of the commonwealth,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.
PennDOT granted Slippery Rock Township $790,000 to complete future improvements of Kiester Road.
“The Project will entail the widening of Kiester Road by elimination of open ditches, installation of stormwater piping and inlets, and adding new culverts and guardrail over two stream crossings where they currently do not exist,” PennDOT’s 2023-24 MTF document said.
Last year, projects totaled $169 million while Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro recently announced another $51 million in August.
PennDOT’s MTF is funded by both federal and state sources, with most of the funding originating from state budget allocations and is distributed via a grant application system.
