{"id":183408,"date":"2026-05-04T12:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183408\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T12:12:23","slug":"penndot-hoping-to-minimize-the-pain-when-the-parkway-east-is-closed-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/183408\/","title":{"rendered":"PennDOT hoping to minimize the pain when the Parkway East is closed this summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Parkway East is closed this summer for the replacement of the Commercial Street Bridge<\/a>, PennDOT says it’s hoping to minimize the pain on drivers.<\/p>\n

With the NFL draft<\/a> and the Pittsburgh Marathon<\/a> in the rearview mirror, the focus now shifts to the complete closure of the Parkway East <\/a>for nearly a full month.<\/p>\n

As the shutdown looms, the planning to minimize the pain is underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sheer magnitude of the closure is intimidating when you think about shutting down a highway that carries 100,000 drivers per day in each direction.<\/p>\n

The Parkway East<\/a> is one of Pittsburgh’s main arteries and on it, the lifeblood of our region flows.<\/p>\n

As the shutdown of the Parkway East is approaching, the new Commercial Street Bridge<\/a> is clearly taking shape with some concrete already poured for the deck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve got two of the deck placements in place currently, and we have another seven to do to wrap up the deck installation,” said PennDOT Senior Assistant Construction Manager John Myler.<\/p>\n

The scheduled closure will begin July 10 and run through August 3 and Myler said he doesn’t even want to talk about wiggle room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We have to hit those dates,” Myler said. “We’ve worked so hard at this point.”<\/p>\n

PennDOT’s crews have been working hard on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n

There’s the planning for removing the old bridge.<\/p>\n

“We are going to do an implosion for the arch of the structure, but we’re going to take the deck off conventionally,” Myler said.<\/p>\n

And then crews will move the new bridge into place using 8-ton jacks that are the size of a desk.<\/p>\n

“There will be 42 jacks that will both lift the bridge and also slide it,” Myler said.<\/p>\n

As for getting 100,000 drivers around the detour daily, Myler said that the NFL draft provided a successful blueprint.<\/p>\n

“Teleworking, I think, is really going to bring those numbers down, which will assist,” Myler said. “And then also, I think ridership on PRT or carpooling, the more vehicles we can get off the road, the better the detours will flow you.”<\/p>\n

Myler said that PennDOT is working with Pittsburgh Regional Transit to set up a plan similar to how the Football Flyers operated during the draft<\/a>, specifically noting that they’re working on using Monroeville Mall to set up a park-and-ride location there where’s there’s a lot of capacity.<\/p>\n

A public meeting is being held virtually next Wednesday evening to lay out all of the traffic restrictions, detours, and more.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Parkway East is closed this summer for the replacement of the Commercial Street Bridge, PennDOT says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16977,3431,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-183408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-i-376","tag-penndot","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}