PennDOT planning for big year of projects on the east side of Allegheny County
It is a $70 million project to repave I-376 from Churchill to Monroeville.
“Anytime you do work on the Parkway East it’s very difficult, you can only do it on very restricted time. You do everything at night and weekends but even on weekends it’s very impactful to the public,” said Jason Zang who’s the District 11 PennDOT Executive.
That project is only the beginning for this side of town.
“I live in Regent Square so it will be bumper to bumper all up and down Braddock Avenue,” a woman told Channel 11.
Drivers are preparing as over the next three years, PennDOT will be replacing the bridge outside the Squirrel Hill Tunnel shutting down the entire parkway for weeks at a time. That one costs $100 million.
“It will be the largest - what we call an accelerated bridge construction type. The plan is to build the new bridge next to the parkway, out of traffic, [for] safety for the workers. It won’t impact people on the parkway,” Zang said.
Even the detour needs work to prepare the route by lowering a ramp to allow for trucks to follow the route.
“The local detour will take traffic off route 8 at the Wilkinsburg exit which is where we will lower the ramp so all traffic can use it. Then running them through the city and back onto I-376,” said Stephanie Zolnak who’s a PennDOT District 11 Traffic Engineer.
While the majority of the projects are focusing on roads and bridges, around $4 million is going to the Beaver Grade Road emergency landslide repair in Moon Township with nearly another million going to a similar slide in Hampton Township.
It’s a Pittsburgh problem that PennDOT is always monitoring and moving funding where it’s needed.
“We are somewhere in the vicinity of 70 to 80 active landslides right now. There are a bunch in the pipeline and some we are watching,” Zang said.
This will not be the end of the work. Drivers can expect yet another repaving project from the bridge up to Churchill starting in 2026.
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