Another in a series of improvements to the highway connection between the Alle-Kiski Valley and Pittsburgh’s North Side begins this week around Route 28’s interchange with the Highland Park Bridge.
Crews for Golden Triangle Construction will begin making lane changes Wednesday for the 2½-year, $47.3 million project designed to improve traffic flow by adding another through lane on the highway in each direction and eliminate some of the hair-raising merges for traffic getting on or off the bridge.
This project and two others that could begin this year by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation also should eliminate the last of the traffic bottlenecks on the highway from Downtown to the Westmoreland County line. About 32,000 drivers use the highway in each direction near the bridge every day.
The work is a continuation of Route 28 improvements that began in 2010 with a four-year project that widened the road, added barriers between north and southbound lanes and eliminated traffic lights by creating off-ramps to the 31st and 40th Street bridges. Those changes were designed to eliminate head-on crashes in a dangerous area that became known as “the death stretch.”
The good news for commuters is that almost all of the new work will be done between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. on weekdays, plus some weekends. There will be some single-lane restrictions from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday between the Highland Park Bridge and the Delafield Road exit while crews place traffic control signs and some overnight work through Friday night to prepare lane changes and install safety barriers.
Throughout the project, there will be at least a dozen changes in traffic patterns to allow the work.
The complicated project will increase free-flowing lanes to two in each direction at the bridge interchange by creating separate exit lanes. When the project is done, two free-flowing lanes will be available in each direction between Delafield Road and the Route 8 interchange, where traffic that now wants to stay on the highway is merged into one lane in each direction to provide an exit onto the bridge.
Adding those lanes won’t be easy, said Jason Zang, who oversees construction for PennDOT’s District 11, which includes Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties. Crews will have to use land on both sides of the northbound lanes approaching the bridge, taking out part of the hillside separating north and south lanes on one side and building up the surface beside the right lane on the other side.
“We’re squeezing as much road in there as we can,” Mr. Zang said.
The project extends from just north of Millvale to the Delafield Road exit and includes lowering Route 28 beneath the Highland Park Bridge to meet clearance standards.
Motorists traveling both north and south will have an additional, third lane to exit to the bridge. Those coming off the bridge will have extended merge lanes when they reach the highway.
Motorists driving north on Route 28 who exit onto the bridge no longer will have to immediately merge left into oncoming southbound traffic also trying to cross the bridge. Motorists from both directions will have their own lanes.
And the ramp that now allows northbound traffic from Freeport Road in Sharpsburg to merge onto the bridge will be eliminated. Those drivers will have to turn left at a new traffic light on Freeport Road to enter a ramp to the bridge.
A major change on southbound Route 28 will prohibit traffic that now enters from Virginia Avenue Extension from merging across two lanes to get onto the bridge. Designers had considered eliminating that entrance because those heading for the bridge created traffic jams, but instead will use an extended ramp and double white lines to prevent left merges to the bridge.
Drivers who had used Virginia Avenue Extension to get to the bridge now will have to travel to Freeport Road and enter from there.
Major changes also will occur for motorists crossing the bridge from Highland Park and heading for Route 28. A traffic light will be installed where Freeport Road traffic now faces a dangerous merge to head south.
Another traffic light will be installed on Freeport Road at the ramp just past Western Avenue in Aspinwall that now takes traffic to the merge point on the bridge and then onto Route 28.
Also, sound barriers will be installed on both sides of Route 28 north of the bridge.
“These ramps have been in need of improvements for some time,” Mr. Zang said. “Our maintenance folks are excited to get them repaved.”
Overall, Mr. Zang said, the project involves preservation of 10 smaller bridges in the area, seven wall preservations, constructing seven sound barriers, five new signs and one culvert preservation
In addition, PennDOT hopes to begin two other projects north of the Delafield Road exit this year.
The first, which already has funding, involves paving between Delafield Road and the Harmar exit from Route 28, the area around RIDC Park. That work also includes creating two free-flowing lanes on the southbound side instead of an exit-only lane on the right in an area where there also is an entrance lane on the left.
The third project, which isn’t yet assured of funding, would pave Route 28 from Harmar to Creighton.
“If we have the funding, we will do them all together,” Mr. Zang said.
Ed Blazina: eblazina@post-gazette.com, 412-264-1470 or on Twitter @EdBlazina.
First Published: January 6, 2021, 10:45 a.m.
Updated: January 6, 2021, 11:28 a.m.