Seeking to sell to anyone who will pay at least $100 and cover the cost of removal, they hope to devote any proceeds and the money saved on demolition fees toward construction of a new, more permanent concrete bridge.
Supervisors Chairman Theodore F. Poatsy Jr. said that strapped by the township's financial limits, he and his colleagues were looking for creative solutions to deal with what had become a costly local problem.
But ask him the obvious question - who would want to bid on a relic? - and he shrugs.
"Maybe somebody wants to move it onto a golf course or just wants it for the timber," he said Monday, staring up at the humpbacked overpass from a wooded trail more than 20 feet below. "Maybe one of those historical preservationists can find some use for it."
To regular attendees of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the rickety wooden bridge just yards from the fairgrounds near Harleysville is a familiar site.
First constructed by the Reading Railroad in 1910 and then rebuilt in 1975, the trestle connects two sides of Salford Station Road and now provides an easily identifiable landmark for cyclists and runners on the repurposed Perkiomen Trails below.
But the 16-foot bridge itself has sat dormant since 2006, when the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation closed it to pedestrian and motorist traffic, citing concerns over its structural integrity.
The cost of repairs has long been too daunting for the township to take on. One contractor estimated the government needed at least $100,000 - nearly one-sixth of the local government's annual budget and approximately the same price it would cost to start over and rebuild.
So officials opted this year to turn to the Web instead.
"Instead of going and spending all that money to tear it down ourselves, we could make some of it back and use it to put toward the next bridge," Poatsy said.
