Parkway East to close for 25 days for bridge work
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The Commercial Street Bridge replacement will be slid into place in July. Photo: Chrissy Suttles/Axios
Parkway East's terrible traffic will reach historic levels this summer, and there's no way to avoid it.
The big picture: PennDOT is replacing the aging Commercial Street Bridge over Nine Mile Run on the Parkway East (Interstate 376), hoping to shore up one of the most traveled corridors in the region.
- It carries about 100,000 vehicles daily, per PennDOT.
All Parkway traffic between the Wilkinsburg exit (78B) and the Forbes Avenue/Oakland exit (72A) will be closed from July 10 to Aug. 3 while crews work around the clock.
- That's 25 days, if all goes according to plan.
Zoom in: Commercial Street and Nine Mile Run under the bridge will also be closed in preparation for and during the project. They will reopen sometime after the bridge replacement is complete.
Detours: Inbound Parkway traffic will exit at Wilkinsburg, travel along Penn Avenue to Fifth Avenue, and then re-enter the Parkway at the Forbes/Oakland entrance.
- Outbound traffic will do the reverse, using Forbes Avenue and then getting on Fifth using Bellefield Avenue.
What they're saying: Congestion is going to be bad, and PennDOT officials recently told KDKA that those 25 days in the summer would be a good time to plan a vacation away from the Steel City.
Yes, but: PennDOT also suggests three alternate routes to avoid Parkway East gridlock.
- Take the Turnpike west and then take I-79 south to I-376 in Robinson.
- Take the Turnpike west and then take Route 28 south to Downtown.
- Take Route 48 west, connect to Route 148 in McKeesport, and head up through Dravosburg and West Mifflin to reach the South Hills.
Zoom out: On the other side of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, the Parkway East will see a redesign to help simplify a complicated interchange, but that work won't begin until 2029.
The bottom line: All additional work on the Commercial Street Bridge replacement project is expected to be completed by 2027.