Despite a public campaign to keep the former Route 903 bridge in Jim Thorpe, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is pushing forward with plans for demolition.

PennDOT spokesman Ron Young said Monday that deck demolition work is anticipated to start in mid-to-late August."A subcontractor is currently installing tie-backs on the old bridge's abutments to secure them before demolition work on the bridge deck," Young said. "Once the tieback work is complete, the old bridge's deck will be saw cut and the superstructure will begin to be removed."For several months, a group of Carbon County residents have attended Jim Thorpe Borough Council meetings, asking the council to support the sale of the old bridge to a private party.Andy Muller, Reading and Northern Railroad owner, expressed an interest in purchasing the bridge, which residents hoped could be used as a pedestrian crossing or a host to festivals and other activities."Andy owns 144 bridges, six tunnels and hundreds of miles of railroad track so we know he could make this work," Todd Konstas of Summit Hill said at a council workshop last week. "He said he would have the confidence to take a train across that bridge so it can't be falling down. I think we should give it a chance."Konstas said he envisions it could be used in a similar way as the High Line in New York City.PennDOT, however, said the bridge, built in 1953 and rehabilitated in 1976, is structurally deficient and needs to come down."It would have been nice to accommodate that, but the bridge is just too far gone," Young said in late June. "On top of that, with the all the rafters and kayakers coming down the Lehigh, the goal is to keep the obstacles in the river to a minimum, which the demolition will do."Jim Thorpe Borough Council wrote a letter to PennDOT stating it did not support keeping the bridge.