It's rare that closing a bridge improves traffic flow, but that's what happened on Route 28 when the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation shut part of the 31st Street Bridge for a month of construction.

Now, some commuters, euphoric from zooming through the intersection without delay, want PennDOT to keep the bridge closed.

But there seems to be no end to the bad news for the oppressed Route 28 crowd, which has put up with more than a decade of construction misery and faces four more years of the same.

The bridge is going to reopen. The traffic light will be turned back on. It'll be bumper-to-bumper business as usual, until next fall, when another closure will begin.

"There's no consideration being given to [keeping the bridge closed]," said Dan Cessna, PennDOT district executive. "Our main goal is to allow access to as many places as possible."

Christopher Ryan of Fox Chapel, president of a civil engineering company, said traffic tie-ups in both directions vanished on July 6, when PennDOT closed the section of bridge from Route 28 to River Avenue to reconstruct piers.

That allowed the department to turn off the traffic light at the bridge's intersection with Route 28, easing the notorious backups that occur there.

"It's so much better," Mr. Ryan said.

The closure, scheduled to end Thursday, also gave a break to traffic leaving Washington's Landing. Instead of a long wait at the River Avenue traffic signal, it has a stop sign, then a short detour to the northbound Route 28 ramp near the old Heinz plant.

"It could be 20 minutes to leave the island" under the normal configuration, Mr. Ryan said.

At the Three Rivers Rowing Association on the island, executive director Rick Brown said most people seem pleased with the closure.

"There hasn't been one person who's said man, I wish that was open again," said Mr. Brown, who emphasized that he was not speaking on behalf of the association.

Dave Gregory, general manager of Washington's Landing Marina, said the closure had reduced traffic on River Avenue, making it easier to reach the island. When everything is open, many drivers "cheat" by using the avenue to bypass some of the Route 28 backup, he said.

"To me it really seems to have improved the traffic patterns all around," Mr. Gregory said.

PennDOT spokesman Jim Struzzi said the closure caused a detour for traffic from Lawrenceville trying to reach Route 28.

"The day it closed I had numerous people call me who use the bridge to go from Lawrenceville to Route 28, and they were livid," Mr. Struzzi said. "Six thousand people a day use the bridge. That's a lot of people."

Mr. Ryan contended that Lawrenceville traffic can still use the bridge to River Avenue, and following the detour from there is faster than waiting at the light when the full bridge is open.

"Once people actually try the new configuration, they will join the chorus of us who access on and off of Washington's Landing who are all pleading" to keep the bridge closed at Route 28, he said.

Next week's reopening of the bridge will be followed closely by the start of major reconstruction on Route 28 from the North Side to Millvale. Northbound traffic will be restricted to one lane for most of the next four years.

If there's a silver lining for those drivers, it is that the 31st Street Bridge will close again in fall 2011, this time for nearly three years, as will Rialto Street, again extinguishing the traffic signals.

When they reopen in 2014, the bridge will have an interchange, with no signal for through traffic.

"Those people are loving it right now," Mr. Cessna said of Route 28 drivers. "It's great. It's a little taste of the future."

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