Post Crossing opened Sept. 26, connecting the Philadelphia and Lower Merion sides of the Hawk Hill campus with a pedestrian pathway underneath City Avenue. The underpass is 21 feet wide, 8-feet-6-inches in height and runs 87 feet from opening to opening.
The opening of the underpass is a “key development for our community,” wrote Joe Kender, MBA, senior vice president of university relations, in response to written questions from The Hawk.
“First, it represents a major milestone in our campus master plan by improving connectivity between important campus landmarks,” Kender wrote.
Construction of Post Crossing began in July 2022. The project was approved by and built according to the criteria of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT).
The total project cost of $12 million was funded by grants from PennDOT and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in addition to a naming gift from John R. Post ’60, Kender wrote.
In April 2021, Pennsylvania state representatives Mary Jo Daley, MPA, and Morgan Cephas announced $3 million for the project, issued through PennDOT’s Multimodal Transportation Funds.
The underpass also “provides a safer, more efficient route under City Avenue, facilitating active transportation options like bicycles, electric bikes, wheelchairs and walking,” Kender wrote.
Post Crossing’s ramps are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act’s standards, said Kevin Mueller, MBA, senior director of construction and planning at St. Joe’s and project manager for Post Crossing. The underpass is fitted with ambient lights that shift in brightness throughout the day, in addition to safety features including security cameras and three blue light emergency phones.
“I think it’s very safe. I noticed that the first time I walked through,” said Ella Douris ’28, who said she uses the underpass multiple times a day. “It’s very good, especially at nighttime when people are walking back from work or labs.”
While often described as an “underpass,” Post Crossing is actually more of a bridge, Mueller said in an October 2023 interview with The Hawk.
“People think about bridges going over, and this is not going over … Basically, we’re putting in a bridge to hold City Ave to allow pedestrians and cyclists and other mobility to walk underneath,” Mueller said.
The bridge, made of precast concrete, has a main plate over the pedestrian walkway, in addition to two wings stretching to the left and right underneath City Avenue. The ends of the wings sit on load-bearing “sleeper slabs,” Mueller said.
The bridge rests on a foundation of 64 steel I-beams. Eight beams beams were installed to the left and the right of the openings on each side of City Avenue, for a total of 32 beams. The interior walls of the underpass are lined with 16 beams on each side below the roadway.
Each beam was installed after a hole was drilled into the rocky ground beneath City Avenue. After the beam was inserted into each hole, it was reinforced by a rebar cage. The hole was then filled with concrete, Mueller said in an October 2024 interview with The Hawk.
“The bridge is literally bolted to the rock,” Mueller said in October 2023. “From a structure standpoint, this is the most secure bridge ever.”
The average length of the beams is 4 feet, but the depth of each hole depends on multiple geological factors, Mueller said in October 2024. If the rock was breaking apart, workers drilled deeper to hit harder, more secure rock.
To account for the added height of the bridge, City Avenue had to be raised a foot over the center of the underpass. The slope of the road over the underpass is very gradual.
While the crosswalk across City Avenue above the underpass remains operational, the brick path that once led students from City Avenue to Cardinal Foley Campus Center will soon be gone for good, Mueller said.
The opening of Post Crossing comes after a full year of delays. The project schedule was divided into three phases: City Avenue utility relocations, bridge construction and interior work and on-campus sitework.
Originally, utility relocations were scheduled from July-September 2022, then bridge construction until July 2023 and finally interior work and on-campus sitework from July-December 2023.
However, utility relocations actually lasted from July 2022 to October 2023, with bridge construction from June 2023 to May 2024 and interior work and on-campus improvements from May-September 2024, Mueller said.
There are many reasons for the delays, but the 16-month utility relocation was the “crux” of the issue, Mueller said in October 2024.
“We had to relocate nine different utilities around City Ave,” Mueller said. “We have to pay those utility companies, who then pay their contractors to then relocate, and because it’s a lot of city entities, it’s less under our control.”
The utilities relocated were PECO electric; PECO gas; Aqua, Lower Merion’s water; Philadelphia Water; Verizon information technology (IT) services; St. Joe’s electrical; St. Joe’s IT services; Philadelphia Water Department sewers and Lower Merion sewers, Mueller said.
Additionally, the original plan estimated that two steel beams would be installed per day, but due to the hardness of the rock in the ground, the construction team only managed one beam per day, Mueller said.
Mueller added that other delays stemmed from not being able to close lanes on City Avenue during the winter months or during the subsurface blasting for Sister Thea Bowman Hall, as well as from St. Joe’s commitment to never fully close City Avenue.
Now that the underpass is open, students like Anthony Campo ’25 are appreciating the convenience and design.
“It’s definitely better than before,” Campo said. “It’s safer, and it’s a lot more convenient than to have to wait for traffic.”
Mueller said this was one of the most complicated projects he’s worked on, and it required balancing the many factors of building under and across a state highway.
“We’re happy that we can deliver this for the community, because it’s much needed,” Mueller said.
Allie Miller ’24 and Vincent Kornacki ’25 contributed to this story.
Update: This article was updated Oct. 9, 2024 to include additional details about Post Crossing’s bridge pieces.
