Almost all local residents are impacted either directly or indirectly by the closure of Butler Pike. While the cause is under debate, most blame the excessive over-development allowed by Whitemarsh and Plymouth Townships as the culprit for the seemingly never-ending sinkhole issue along Butler Pike.
The County was stuck holding the bag last year when, not one, but 2 sinkholes opened making it all but impossible to deploy a quick fix to reopen the road and promoting the County to engage an engineer to fix the problem once and for all.
The long wait is over, the plan has been revealed at a price tag of $1,800,000 to the Montgomery County Tax Payer. Here are some of the actions which Montogomery County is proposing, via their submitted plan, to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission.
The project will include the following work by the County on Butler Pike in the County Right of way adjacent to the crossing:
Low mobility grouting (10’-50’ below the top of the road) to fill in any voids and harden underlying subgrade
Reconstruction of Butler Pike underneath the bridge.
Installation of drainage pipe in Butler Pike to carry stormwater.
The installation of a new concrete box culvert just south of the crossing. The box culvert carries offsite and NS runoff that flows in a drainage swale within the NS right of way.
In order to best protect the road from further undermining the County would like to complete
the following work within NS (Norfolk Southern) right of way:
Low mobility grouting (lO’-SO* below the top of the road) to fill in any voids and harden
underlying subgrade in the channel 35’ upstream and downstream of the culvert.
Stream hardening in the channel 35’ upstream and downstream of the culvert.
There are several utilities under Butler Pike within the County right of way. The following
utilities will replace their underground facilities during this construction contract:
Texas Eastern - 8” and 12” Main
Whitemarsh Sewer Authority -12” Main
Verizon - drop existing duct bank to go under the proposed culvert
Aqua PA - replace existing 12” Main
A traffic study from 2018 suggests 30,000 vehicles pass through this intersection in a three day period. You can read the entire plan here. The plan outlined by the county does not give an ETA for completion if approved by the PUC.
You can join the conversation about this proposal on our community Facebook page TalkinPlymouth or in the Facebook Group created just for this topic.
