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Grata's Guide: Intersection from another era may be fixed in another era
Sunday, August 22, 1999 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Grata's Guide gets letters and lots of e-mail, too.The backlog of correspondence is not as large as the list of road and bridge projects that we read about, hear about, talk about and then wonder about when nothing seems to happen. So, let's dig in.
Don Scott of Overbrook asks about the state's latest plans for reconstruction of the Route 51-88 intersection in Overbrook.
Response. The $20 million project to rebuild an intersection designed in horse-and-buggy days but now used by 55,000 motor vehicles a day was to have started in the spring of 1995.
PennDOT announced the project in February 1993. It held an open house the next month in the St. Norbert Church auditorium, telling people their property might be taken and telling drivers they would face a horrendous experience because two tributaries come together and form Saw Mill Run directly beneath the intersection that was to be ripped up.
Here's the latest poop from PennDOT: No date has been chosen to start rebuilding the intersection before it collapses. Instead, PennDOT's attention has shifted to Route 88 just south of Route 51, where part of the two-lane roadway is falling into the creek.
PennDOT announced the Route 88 repairs would get under way this summer, but it can't award a contract because it can't clear the right of way. What's holding it up? The owner of two giant billboards isn't giving them up without a fight.
Thomas Trageser of Brentwood and Bob Spargal of Liberty both asked, "What happened to the Glenwood Bridge?" Spargal also offered some advice to transportation planners: "For once, think of the working people south of the city instead of only the North Shore!"
Response. Chunks of the bridge deck have been falling into the Monongahela River for several years now, and the county is doing something about it, albeit a little later than planned.
The county commissioners have awarded a contract to repair the bridge and give it a new coat of paint, but the four-lane deck will not be closed until late winter, probably March. A total closure is necessary because the bridge design and nature of the work make it impractical to place concrete while trying to maintain one lane of traffic in each direction. And, total closure will make it possible to reopen in six months instead of nine months.
The Glenwood Bridge is a bureaucratic nightmare, an example of why it takes so long to get things going in so many parts of the region.
If memory serves me correctly, the city of Pittsburgh owns the sidewalks and lights; Allegheny County owns the river piers, superstructure and the base of the bridge deck; PennDOT owns the top 1-inch "wearing surface" of the bridge deck and the approaches; three railroads have either an ownership or maintenance stake in the bridge; and several companies use the span to carry utilities.
Over the past two weeks, PennDOT has limited traffic to a single lane at the south end of the bridge, making repairs it should have made two years ago while working in the same area and making them without notifying anybody in advance, including the PG.
Pauline Kraly wants to know if there's any news about the Panther Hollow Bridge in Schenley Park. "Seems that it has been closed for over a year now."
Response. A court case delayed the project by two years, and a car race last summer delayed the start of work by one month.
But Fred Reginella, city director of engineering and construction, said the $4.1 million renovation, the last of three park bridges to be repaired in the 1990s, is on schedule and will probably be finished in time for Thanksgiving. Thanks.
Road rage. Richard A. Losego of Cranberry sounds as if he really wants to get something off his chest. I don't blame him. I'm gonna let him do it his way.
"The 1.5-mile northbound lanes of Interstate 79 from the I-279 split to the Wexford Exit is wall-to-wall asphalt patches. PennDOT says they have no plans in the next two years to do any slab replacements. Are they waiting for a serious accident to occur?
"They can't blame the weather for this poorly constructed highway. New craters open every week. What can be more entertaining than dodging 5-inch-deep holes in rush-hour traffic while driving at 65 mph? They must feel that weekly patching of the busiest highway in the North Hills is more cost-efficient.
"I think they are trying to convert this from concrete to an asphalt highway, one patch at a time. What a novel way to stretch our increased tax dollars."
Bravo, Losego!
Plate du jour. Spotted in the Harrisburg area last week, a single-letter Pennsylvania license plate -- B -- on a luxury car. As in Plan B? Or does he also have cars with plates A and C?
Factoid. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation subsidized the purchase of more than 100 subway cars last year for the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Include address and phone number.
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