Bridge to span gap in Somerset bike trail

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
By Lawrence Walsh, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

MEYERSDALE, Pa. — The Bollman Bridge, a long-awaited part of the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail in southern Somerset County, was scheduled to be lifted into place today.

Two cranes were to move the multi-ton iron truss bridge onto abutments on either side of Scratch Hill Road, about two miles southeast of Meyersdale.

Bicyclists should be able to use it by mid-August, said Brett Hollern, Somerset County trail coordinator. “We have to install a deck and railings and build the trail up to it.”

The bridge, built in 1871 by a construction company owned by Wendell Bollman, will eliminate a dirt, gravel and rock detour down to, across and up from Scratch Hill Road.

The bridge was moved to its new site from a point about two miles northwest of Meyersdale, where it carried a farm road over railroad tracks now used by Amtrak and freight carriers.

The Bollman Bridge is part of a 42-mile section of the multi-purpose passage that runs through the county. It begins in Confluence, crosses a variety of renovated railroad bridges and includes a 3,300-foot tunnel. It ends at the Maryland border.

When completed next year, the Great Allegheny Passage will extend 150 miles from the Point in Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., where it joins the 182-mile C & O Towpath to Washington, D.C.

More details in tomorrow’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.