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<\/p>\nParkway closure detours bring added time to afternoon commute in Pittsburgh<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\tUpdated: 6:15 PM EDT Jul 13, 2026\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\tEditorial Standards \u24d8<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tWhile the morning commute wasn\u2019t as crowded as some expected with the Parkway East closure, the ride out of the city in the afternoon was a different story. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t bad, but I left 15 minutes earlier than usual, and there was already traffic,\u201d Shawn Alfonso-Wells, of Swissvale, said. \u201cI don\u2019t think coming in was bad. I think going home will be worse. Everybody\u2019s converging.\u201dFor those who took the Commercial Street Bridge detour from Penn Avenue through Forbes in Oakland, they saw their drive from Oakland to Wilkinsburg lasted close to an hour. Without traffic, the route can be travelled within 20-30 minutes. Some found the detour hard to navigate, partially because their GPS wasn\u2019t keeping up. \u201cWe got lost a couple of times,\u201d Alisha Koumphol, who’s visiting from Canada, said. \u201cThere are quite a few detours and construction. Google Maps isn\u2019t picking them up right away.\u201dTo help alleviate some of the congestion in Oakland, construction projects in the area will be halted during the detours. \u201cThey\u2019ve committed to holding off on their project until we\u2019re done with the detour,\u201d PennDOT District 11 Executive Jason Zang said. \u201cI do want to thank the public. Everything\u2019s going well, and the public\u2019s doing what we asked them to do. They\u2019ve planned ahead; they\u2019re doing that, and we\u2019re holding up our end of the bargain, too.\u201dDespite the drive out of Pittsburgh being a bit slower, most drivers were pleased with what they saw on Monday. \u201cWhen I was leaving for work earlier in the morning, there was a little more traffic going through Forbes and Murray,\u201d Hannah Sagastegui, who was in the middle of detour traffic over the weekend, said. \u201cIt\u2019s not absurd traffic. Not horrible. It was kind of normal; it just depends on when you leave the house. It was nothing like it was in Homestead on Saturday.\u201dHowever, those working in the city aren\u2019t calling the closure plan a success quite yet. \u201cI think people were prepared for Monday,\u201d Alfonso-Wells said. \u201cThe question is, what will it be like on Wednesday? That\u2019s the time that everyone is going to say, \u2018It wasn\u2019t so bad, so I\u2019m going to go in.\u2019 As the week goes on and people venture out some more, it\u2019s going to get worse.\u201dDownload the WTAE app to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news in your inbox.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tPITTSBURGH \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n While the morning commute wasn\u2019t as crowded as some expected with the Parkway East closure, the ride out of the city in the afternoon was a different story. <\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t bad, but I left 15 minutes earlier than usual, and there was already traffic,\u201d Shawn Alfonso-Wells, of Swissvale, said. \u201cI don\u2019t think coming in was bad. I think going home will be worse. Everybody\u2019s converging.\u201d<\/p>\n For those who took the Commercial Street Bridge detour from Penn Avenue through Forbes in Oakland, they saw their drive from Oakland to Wilkinsburg lasted close to an hour. Without traffic, the route can be travelled within 20-30 minutes. <\/p>\n Some found the detour hard to navigate, partially because their GPS wasn\u2019t keeping up. <\/p>\n \u201cWe got lost a couple of times,\u201d Alisha Koumphol, who’s visiting from Canada, said. \u201cThere are quite a few detours and construction. Google Maps isn\u2019t picking them up right away.\u201d<\/p>\n To help alleviate some of the congestion in Oakland, construction projects in the area will be halted during the detours. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve committed to holding off on their project until we\u2019re done with the detour,\u201d PennDOT District 11 Executive Jason Zang said. \u201cI do want to thank the public. Everything\u2019s going well, and the public\u2019s doing what we asked them to do. They\u2019ve planned ahead; they\u2019re doing that, and we\u2019re holding up our end of the bargain, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the drive out of Pittsburgh being a bit slower, most drivers were pleased with what they saw on Monday. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was leaving for work earlier in the morning, there was a little more traffic going through Forbes and Murray,\u201d Hannah Sagastegui, who was in the middle of detour traffic over the weekend, said. \u201cIt\u2019s not absurd traffic. Not horrible. It was kind of normal; it just depends on when you leave the house. It was nothing like it was in Homestead on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n However, those working in the city aren\u2019t calling the closure plan a success quite yet. <\/p>\n \u201cI think people were prepared for Monday,\u201d Alfonso-Wells said. \u201cThe question is, what will it be like on Wednesday? That\u2019s the time that everyone is going to say, \u2018It wasn\u2019t so bad, so I\u2019m going to go in.\u2019 As the week goes on and people venture out some more, it\u2019s going to get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n Download the WTAE app<\/a> to stay connected with breaking news. Sign up for our email newsletters<\/a> to get breaking news in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Parkway closure detours bring added time to afternoon commute in Pittsburgh Updated: 6:15 PM EDT Jul 13, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[103990,894,79,20507,53,4630,9376,5442,7133,13710,7814,103991,1730,4808,73,75,74,103992,526,1704],"class_list":["post-242624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-afternoon-commute","tag-allegheny-county","tag-city","tag-commercial-street-bridge","tag-construction","tag-detour","tag-drive","tag-forbes","tag-monday","tag-morning-commute","tag-oakland","tag-parkway-closure-detour","tag-parkway-east","tag-penn-avenue","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-shawn-alfonso-well","tag-time","tag-traffic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242624","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=242624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}