Send in the cones: Road work slated
Share with others:
You've seen those winter safety checklists advising motorists to carry items such as a blanket, flashlight, shovel and sand. Here's a partial summer checklist for local drivers: a good supply of soothing music, a functioning air conditioner and a full reservoir of patience.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will be orange-ing up the landscape again this season as it expects to start or continue 168 projects and spend $316.2 million on road and bridge construction in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties.
That is about what the department paid out last year, said District 11 Executive Dan Cessna. But PennDOT will start fewer projects this year -- bid openings are expected to decline by about $90 million -- as a state transportation funding shortfall starts to take hold. That will translate to a projected 30 percent decline in construction spending next year, he said.
The biggest new project is the $49.5 million Squirrel Hill Tunnel rehabilitation, which will cause eight full weekend closures of the westbound tunnel this year, on dates yet to be announced. The closures will shift to the eastbound tunnel next season.
PDFThere will be westbound lane closures overnight and on the weekends when the tunnel stays open, Mr. Cessna said.
City of Pittsburgh and PennDOT crews will work on improving detour routes in March and April, repaving parts of Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill and Forbes and South Braddock avenues in Point Breeze and Regent Square. The first full weekend closure will be sometime in April but not on Easter weekend, he said.
Work will continue on three big projects on roads leading to Downtown: Route 28, where drivers will see major landscape changes and traffic shifts in a project slated to continue through late 2014; Route 65, where the closure at the Marshall Avenue interchange is now projected to last until Labor Day; and the Veterans Bridge-Crosstown Boulevard, where $36 million of work on 20 separate bridge and ramp structures will continue.
For the first time, long-term lane closures will be in place on the Veterans Bridge as it undergoes its first major rehabilitation since its opening in November 1988. Two lanes of traffic will be maintained in both directions, Mr. Cessna said.
First Published February 7, 2012 12:00 am
