Drivers who use Knight Road from Gravel Pike (Route 29) in Marlborough Township to Layfield Road (Route 663) in Upper Hanover Township may want to start looking for an alternate route. 

                According to a recently released traffic control plan, the bridge, which crosses over a portion of the Green Lane Reservoir between Ward Road and View Road, will close sometime in March and could remain closed for up to a year.

                The marked detour route will link Knight Road, just south of Ward Road, and Layfield Road (Route 663) via Ward Road and King Road in the township.

                The Montgomery County Commissioners accepted a bid of $2,129.541.30 to replace the bridge from H&K Group of Skippack on November 5, 2015.  Engineering costs in 2012 were reported as $379,510.44.

                Replacement of the bridge, built in 1957, has been on the table for several years. 

                In 2011 Brett Grove, P.E. of Bursich Associates, Inc., along with representatives from Montgomery County's Department of Roads and Bridges, described the planned replacement of the bridge to township supervisors.  At that time, the project was estimated to cost $1.5 million and was scheduled to begin in 2013.

                Later in 2011, the 5-ton-limit span was found to be a home to the red-bellied turtle, which are threatened in Pennsylvania and are listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

                According to then Montgomery County Roads and Bridges Director Don Colisimo, "The bridge was already delayed in the planning stages after officials, at PennDOT's request, did a red-bellied turtle study in the area at a cost of more than $25,000 and engineers developed a mitigation plan to avoid the nesting areas at a cost of $61,537."

                The turtles mate and nest from April until June.  State and federal regulations said construction in the water can't be completed during that time so as not to disrupt the turtles. 

                The project was also delayed by the discovery of a colony of bats in the bridge's hollow steel beams.  Those bats, about 1,000 in number, were to be relocated to nearby bat boxes by a state contracted agency.  There were no threatened or endangered bat species found at the location.