PENNSYLVANIA — The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has plans to replace the Pond Eddy Bridge, and therefore would like to sell the existing bridge to a willing buyer; but that’s not the only bridge the organization is trying to unload.

At the website paprojectpath.org/penndot-crm/bridges/bridges-for-sale, nine historic bridges are listed as available for purchase.

Many of the bridges are on the list of the National Register of Historic Places, and Pennsylvania wants to sell them because they weren’t built for today’s heavy traffic. That said, instead of simply demolishing them, Pennsylvania wants to find buyers who are going to reuse them—preferably in a creative way, after moving them to suitable locations and rehabilitation. The sales may be able to offset some of the costs of newer bridges.

Some of the bridges that have already been sold have been reused on university campuses, or on state or other park projects. The PennDOT website explains that the state is actively marketing the bridges for sale—first to state, and then other government organizations. If that doesn’t work, individuals can bid. Some wealthy individuals have been known to purchase a bridge for their own, private estates. A bridge doesn’t have to cost much, but part of the package is to rehabilitate it.

So why are these bridges for sale?

It’s all to do with the “load and width,” the website explains. In plain English, that means they were designed to carry 10 to 15 tons, which is much below modern fire or fuel trucks—or up to the width required by modern interstate bridges.

Wikipedia.com explains Pond Eddy Bridge was built in 1903 by the Oswego Bridge Company to replace an old suspension bridge that had washed away in a flood earlier in the year. It goes from Pond Eddy, NY in the Town of Lumberland to Pond Eddy, PA, in Shohola, PA, and it carried bluestone that was used to build many public buildings in the area. It also carried slate and lumber across the Delaware River in the heyday of Delaware and Hudson Canal that runs along the river.

Today, the bridge connects about one dozen year-round residential properties from Pond Eddy, PA to New York Route 97, their only connection to any road system—and no connection to Pennsylvania roads.

The work is slated to start in April 2016 to replace the bridge with a new, interstate standard bridge.