Planning continues on the overhaul of a foot bridge that Carbon County employees use to get from the parking lot to the county administration building in Jim Thorpe.

The Carbon County commissioners approved a motion last week for professional services from Keystone Engineering of Kresgeville. The company will provide design, permitting and bid documents for replacing the aging foot bridge, at a cost of $80,000.

Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko said that the commissioners are looking at a complete replacement instead of repairing the bridge, which has been deteriorating over the last several years.

“What the commissioners are doing here is getting it designed for replacement,” Sofranko said. “We’ve been advised that the bridge is not in good shape.”

He added that while this is necessary, the board is looking at all angles to try to keep cost down.

“We are in discussions as to how much we really wish to spend replacing that bridge,” Sofranko said. “We are trying to get the numbers together and if it fits within our budget, fine, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to be coming up with other solutions because we’re not going to spend money foolishly. ...

“We’re trying our best to get this number down because we were not happy with the preliminary numbers we were getting.”

Carbon County began looking at repairing options for the bridge last June. At that time, the board noted the bridge, in its current state, has significant wear and tear, including a few cracks in the concrete, a small hole at the end of the bridge near the parking lot and rusted beams.

They had hopes to just refurbish the bridge initially; including sandblasting and painting the beams, redoing the decking and making necessary repairs.

The last time the bridge was rehabilitated was approximately 2002.