ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The oldest bridge in Lehigh County is set to get a major facelift this year.
Allentown City Council last month accepted a $1.3 million federal grant to restore and rehabilitate Bogert’s Bridge in Lehigh Parkway.
With that grant, the city appears to have all the funding it needs to complete the project.
Crews are expected to at least partially disassemble the wooden bridge to evaluate the conditions of its aging elements and restore its structural stability, according to plans posted on the bridge.
Those plans indicate the bridge also will get a new roof and a fresh coat of paint.
“This is a long time coming. This project’s been in the works for quite a few years.”Allentown Parks and Recreation Director Mandy Tolino
Bogert’s Bridge “will look the same as it would have in the past” after the project is finished, Allentown Parks and Recreation Director Mandy Tolino told council in March.
Tolino said the bridge will be restored to standards set by the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
Parks and recreation staff have worked for a few years to complete the fundraising, design and permitting phases of the project, she said.
“This is a long time coming,” Tolino told council in March. “This project’s been in the works for quite a few years.”
The seven-figure grant from the Federal Highway Administration’s Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside program will be added to an $80,000 grant secured in 2018 and a $750,000 grant secured in 2019.
The project is projected to cost just over $2 million.
The city received the TASA grant in 2022 but waited to put it on its books until this year when construction will start, Tolino said.
The Valley loves its covered bridges
Designers and city staff also are consulting with Lehigh County officials, who led a project to repair Geiger’s Covered Bridge in North Whitehall Township.
“The Lehigh Valley has a few [covered bridges], and I think it’s a unique thing for this area,” Tolino said.
According to Discover Lehigh Valley, the region has seven of Pennsylvania’s roughly 200 covered bridges, including five that still are open for traffic.
Bogert's Bridge "is obviously getting in a little state of disrepair."Don Breisch, resident
Bogert’s Bridge is the only covered bridge in Allentown. The organization states that there are three in North Whitehall Township, two in South Whitehall Township and one in Allen Township.
On Monday, Don Breisch was walking with his wife, Marie, and their rescue dog, Noel, at Bogert’s Bridge He said a project to restore the bridge “would be great.”
“This is obviously getting in a little state of disrepair,” Breisch said just after crossing the bridge, where you can see through the floorboards to the Lehigh Creek below.
Lehigh Parkway, which stretches miles in either direction from the bridge, is “heavily used" — especially since the start of the coronavirus pandemic four years ago, Breisch said.
The parkway is “great for biking, walking your dog, running,” Breisch said.
He said he and his wife use a different stretch of the parkway almost every day to take Noel on her two-mile walk.
“She demands it,” Marie Breisch said.
