Parkway East work to begin Monday
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An 11-week assault gets under way Monday to repair and repave 2.6 miles of the Parkway East/Interstate 376 between Downtown and Greenfield, mostly during off-peak hours.
The work will take place weeknights and entire weekends, closing up to two lanes at a time to finish before some of summer's biggest events in the first two weeks of July, including the Three Rivers Regatta, Downtown fireworks and the baseball All-Star Game.
As an adjunct to the $5.1 million project, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will remove an ugly landmark -- an old pedestrian bridge crossing the parkway just east of Bates Street.
The footbridge dates to the mid-1950s, when the Parkway East was built, so employees who walked to work from Oakland neighborhoods to the old Jones & Laughlin steel mills along Second Avenue would not be cut off by the limited-access highway.
Now rusted and tagged with graffiti, the footbridge has been closed for about 10 years. PennDOT will remove the structure with the city's blessing, although no provision has been made to raze barricaded concrete steps on both sides.
"We thought of putting a 'Welcome to Pittsburgh' sign on it" before PennDOT suggested tearing down the bridge, city spokesman Dick Skrinjar said.
"Heading inbound and rounding the curve [near Greenfield], another of the city's great vistas unfolds," Mr. Skrinjar said. "The old bridge is an eyesore. Getting rid of it will improve the view."
The stretch of Parkway East where PennDOT will do what engineers call "pavement preservation" is the same stretch that was rebuilt in 1984-85.
Traffic was detoured onto Fort Pitt Boulevard and the Boulevard of the Allies, creating two construction seasons of havoc for commuters, visitors and businesses.
This time, the work is less extensive, so PennDOT has written a contract that no lanes will be closed before 8 p.m. and they must be reopened by 6 a.m. on weekdays. Up to two of the three lanes can be closed in off-peak hours on weekends and over two entire weekends (dates are undetermined), when PennDOT needs more than 10-hour windows to tackle large items.
The job will start in the outbound direction, at Grant Street, where work done several years ago as part of the Fort Pitt Bridge-Tunnel rehabilitation left off. After several weeks, the contractor will be working in both directions at once.
The Downtown-Oakland section is the most heavily traveled part of the Parkway East, carrying an average of 110,000 vehicles a day on weekdays, up to 8 percent of them commercial vehicles.
PennDOT District 11 Executive Dan Cessna said work during off-peak hours will minimize traffic interference.
"We wouldn't expect many delays during weekdays, but during weekends, traffic gets heavy at times and we could see backups," Mr. Cessna said. "We'll play it by ear and work with the contractor to make things operate as smoothly as possible."
On Mondays to Thursdays, for example, the contractor can close one lane outbound at 8 p.m. but not a second lane until 9 p.m. On Friday, the second lane can't be closed before 11 p.m.
The contractor will saw-cut sections of concrete, then pour a special concrete mix that sets in seven hours. "There are times when motorists won't see anyone working and we take criticism, but it's usually the concrete curing," Mr. Cessna said.
To save time when it rehabilitated the Parkway East in the 1980s, PennDOT covered the original concrete with a thin coat of asphalt and a layer of plastic before pouring a 8-inch thick concrete slab atop it all.
Because the eastbound lanes show worse deterioration, after the top concrete slab is repaired, it will be paved with 3 1/2 inches of asphalt. On the westbound lanes, PennDOT will only repair the concrete.
"Under these heavy traffic conditions, what we're doing should extend the life of the pavement by eight to 10 years," Mr. Cessna said. Then the roadway will likely require the same treatment, rather than complete rehabilitation.
John Beale, Post-GazetteWork to repair and repave the Parkway East/Interstate 376 starts Monday.
First Published April 12, 2006 12:00 am
