{"id":243383,"date":"2026-07-14T20:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T20:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243383\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T20:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T20:22:13","slug":"explosive-demolition-of-parkway-east-commercial-street-bridge-set-for-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/243383\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosive demolition of Parkway East Commercial Street Bridge set for Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The explosive demolition of Pittsburgh&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/parkway-east-closure-first-day-commute\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Commercial Street Bridge<\/a>\u00a0is scheduled for Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>PennDOT announced on Tuesday that crews will blow up the Interstate 376 bridge on July 15, weather permitting. It&#8217;s scheduled to happen between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., with a more specific timeframe expected as details develop.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>PennDOT says the explosion will only happen after crews and emergency personnel have cleared the blast radius on the ground and in the air, making sure everything is safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Residents should anticipate a loud sound and additional dust afterwards, though they can go about their day normally, PennDOT says.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>People can watch a livestream of the demolition on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pa.gov\/agencies\/penndot\/projects-near-you\/district-11-projects\/commercial-street-bridge-replacement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">PennDOT&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Crews are blowing up the bridge in between the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and the Edgewood\/Swissvale interchange to make way for the new bridge that has been built beside it. Once the old bridge is gone, workers will slide the new bridge into place. It&#8217;ll be one of the largest lateral side projects performed in Pennsylvania, PennDOT said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>During this work, part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/when-will-parkway-east-376-close-reopen-timeline\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Parkway East will be closed<\/a>\u00a0through Aug. 3. While a 25-day closure may seem inconvenient, conventional construction methods would have required about four years of work. PennDOT says this one-and-done closure is preferable to years of squeezing parkway traffic to one side and enduring continuous lane closures and restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>Traffic will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/parkway-east-closure-376-detours\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">detoured<\/a>\u00a0during the closure, and drivers can look at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/updating-drive-times-parkway-east-i-376-detour-closure\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">real-time updates of how traffic<\/a>\u00a0is flowing online.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The explosive demolition of Pittsburgh&#8217;s Commercial Street Bridge\u00a0is scheduled for Wednesday. PennDOT announced on Tuesday that crews will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1730,3431,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-243383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-parkway-east","tag-penndot","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243383","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=243383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}