ZELIENOPLE — The Route 68 bridge over Glade Run in the borough will be replaced next year, but the work will cause traffic delays.

The state Department of Transportation had an open house at the borough office Thursday night to share preliminary plans of the $1.5 million project and hear concerns from residents.

The bridge needs to be replaced because of its age and condition, according to PennDOT project manager David Layman.

Because of the high amount of traffic on the road — 4,500 vehicles per day — the state has opted to do the construction in two phases leaving one lane open at all times, Layman said.

“It will be a congested work zone, there will be queuing, there will be delays, but it’s still a better option than a detour,” he said.

The construction will start in spring 2015 and be finished by September or October of that year, said Jim Naget of URS, the consultants who made the designs for the new bridge.

Doing most of the work in the summer will minimize the impact on school buses, Naget said.

While one lane of the road is closed, temporary stoplights will be erected to allow one direction of traffic to travel over the bridge at a time.

The new bridge will be wider and will have a larger opening underneath for water to pass through. It will have 8-foot paved shoulders, which will be twice as wide as the current shoulders, Naget said.

Layman said state officials recently met with borough, fire and EMS officials, who support the project despite the expected delays on traffic and emergency response time.

To travel east to Route 19, fire trucks exiting the nearby Zelienople Fire Department firehouse will need to cross the bridge. However, they will have a device that preempts the traffic light to allow a fire truck get by as quickly as possible, Layman said.