{"id":317239,"date":"2026-10-29T23:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/317239\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T23:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T23:46:09","slug":"they-did-an-awesome-job-new-route-724-bridge-opens-in-robeson-twp-to-delight-of-commuters-southern-berks-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/317239\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They did an awesome job\u2019: New Route 724 Bridge opens in Robeson TWP. to delight of commuters | Southern Berks County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ROBESON TOWNSHIP, Pa.\u00a0&#8211; After about six months of construction and detours, drivers in Robeson Township can once again travel across the Route 724 bridge.<\/p>\n<p>The new bridge over Allegheny Creek\u00a0opened Thursday following a ceremony attended by officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, as well as state Rep. Mark Gillen and community members.<\/p>\n<p>Gillen said the opening is expected to help ease congestion caused by drivers exiting Route 422.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is something the community&#8217;s been looking forward to for a long time, and we&#8217;re pleased that the state has delivered today,\u201d Gillen said.<\/p>\n<p>Gillen also thanked PennDOT for completing the project on schedule. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/news\/area\/berks\/route-724-closure-in-robeson-township-creates-detour-confusion\/article_ccc32e00-4dde-492b-b59c-51a1f4fe6659.html\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/news\/area\/berks\/route-724-closure-in-robeson-township-creates-detour-confusion\/article_ccc32e00-4dde-492b-b59c-51a1f4fe6659.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Construction began in April<\/a> to replace the previous bridge, which was about 70 years old and needed to be rebuilt.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Bitler, chairman of the Robeson Township Board of Supervisors, thanked everyone involved in the project, especially those who helped keep construction on schedule and the public informed.<\/p>\n<p>Residents also expressed relief as the bridge reopened, citing the inconvenience of detours and traffic congestion during construction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey did an awesome job on it,\u201d said Darryl Maurer. \u201cI&#8217;m going to jump in my Jeep, and I&#8217;m going to drive across it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cory Michael said the six-month closure was difficult, but felt the wait was reasonable given the need to reopen the bridge.<\/p>\n<p>Ruth Rapposelli said the detours made everyday travel more difficult and welcomed the reopening.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has been a big problem,\u201d Rapposelli said. \u201cGoing around the bypass, that&#8217;s so rugged there. This makes our life so much easier. [I\u2019m] very happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new bridge is expected to provide service for about 100 years before needing replacement again.<\/p>\n<p>\nCopyright 2026 Maranatha Broadcasting Co., Inc.. All Rights Reserved.\n<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROBESON TOWNSHIP, Pa.\u00a0&#8211; After about six months of construction and detours, drivers in Robeson Township can once again&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[76378,129262,2857,10213,3431,128,130,129,12748,64587,16979],"class_list":["post-317239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-allegheny-creek","tag-bridge-opening","tag-infrastructure","tag-mark-gillen","tag-penndot","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-robeson-township","tag-route-724","tag-traffic-detour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}