With the weather on its side, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation marked the end of a successful construction season on Tuesday with more than 700 miles of roadway paved and 39 bridges repaired or replaced in the Pittsburgh region.
Much of Southwestern Pennsylvania has been experiencing drought-like conditions for most of the fall and for PennDOT this was a bonus.
“PennDOT does not mind a drought,” Jason Zang, the District 11 Executive said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “We can get a lot done and we took advantage of that.”
District 11 handles state-owned roads in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties.
Because of the dry weather, the department was able to pave later in the year than is normal. As a result, some projects, such as the Interstate 79 improvement project are much closer to being finished than originally expected.
“[Interstate 79] was going to have a good amount of work next spring,” Assistant District Executive for Construction Douglas Thompson said Tuesday. Now, the work to be finished next year on that project is minimal.
Near the I-79 on-ramps at the Steubenville Pike interchange Mr. Zang and Mr. Thompson highlighted some of the department’s achievements for the 2024 construction season, which is winding down this week.
The department has been upgrading sections of the I-79 all the way from the Parkway East interchange through Butler and Lawrence counties to the Mercer County line, most of which has been completed.
At the beginning of the construction season, the department had planned to improve or replace 25 bridges. They announced Tuesday that they had worked on 35 bridges, nine of which were in poor condition.
One notable bridge project finished in 2024 was the rehabilitation of the Smithfield Street Bridge. The project included drainage improvements, upgrades to the traffic lane-control system and new countdown signals for pedestrian crossings.
The project cost about $8.5 million.
Mr. Zang also pointed to the New Kensington Bridge preservation as one of the department’s major bridge projects.
The project, which included new overlays to the bridge deck and sidewalk and structural steel repairs among other things. The bridge was originally built in 1927 and hadn’t been rehabilitated since 1989.
“Not every bridge project is a replacement,” Mr. Zang said. “Sometimes it’s preservation or rehabilitation. All of that work is critical to ensure the long life of the bridge.”
Despite the good weather this year, some projects are still carrying over into 2025.
On McKnight Road in Ross, “most of the work is done,” Mr. Thompson said, but a few things remain to be finished in the spring, including drain improvements to the right hand lane on the southbound side.
Mr. Thompson said he expects the work to be completed by late-spring or early-summer next year.
Work on the Parkway East between Churchill and Monroeville will also continue next year. Drivers can expect long-term lane restrictions as work continues there.
In total, the state completed about $441 million worth of infrastructure projects between Allegheny, Lawrence and Beaver counties.
First Published: November 26, 2024, 9:44 p.m.
Updated: November 27, 2024, 12:33 a.m.