The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation District 5 has announced road restrictions are anticipated for a project to rehabilitate the Route 873 Lehigh Gap Bridge over the Lehigh River, Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Trail, Paint Mill Road, and Norfolk Southern Railroad in Washington Township, Lehigh County, and Lehigh Township, Northampton County.

The southbound lane on the Route 873 Bridge will be closed and detoured.

Route 873 South traffic will be detoured onto Route 248, Route 145 and Main Street.

Route 873 South will be closed for most of the project.

There will also be times when both Route 873 North and South are closed, and these times are limited to weeknights 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and over two weekends 8 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Monday to perform critical activities.

Advance notice will be provided to the public when full closures are scheduled.

Work will include bridge cleaning, structural steel repairs, bearing repairs, painting, expansion joint replacement, concrete deck repairs, and placement of a deck overlay.

The Route 873 Lehigh Gap Bridge was built in 1930 and rehabilitated in 1984.

The seven span bridge is 1,024 feet long and 26 feet wide.

Spans one and seven are riveted steel through girders, and spans two through six are steel trusses.

Route 873 in this area has an average daily traffic volume of 9,562 vehicles.

Kriger Construction Inc. of Scranton, is the general contractor on the $6,923,127 project, which is expected to be completed in February 2026.

Motorists can check conditions on more than 40,000 roadway miles, including color-coded winter conditions on 2,900 miles, by visiting 511PA.com.

511PA, which is free and available 24 hours a day, provides traffic delay warnings, weather forecasts, traffic speed information and access to more than 1,000 traffic cameras.

Subscribe to PennDOT news and traffic alerts in Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, and Schuylkill counties at penndot.pa.gov/District5.

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