{"id":255448,"date":"2026-07-30T12:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/255448\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:46:08","slug":"penndot-reaches-major-milestone-for-i-79-interchange-reconstruction-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/255448\/","title":{"rendered":"PennDOT reaches major milestone for I-79 interchange reconstruction project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is no question that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/pittsburgh\/news\/parkway-east-commercial-street-bridge-reopening\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Commercial Street Bridge<\/a>\u00a0project was the big project of the year for PennDOT, but it wasn&#8217;t the only big project taking place.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Quietly in the shadows, another major project has been moving along and recently reached a major milestone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Wexford interchange reconstruction is more than just rebuilding; it&#8217;s an entire reimagining of an interchange that has become a headache for those who use it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The project began a year ago and has officially reached the halfway point.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are on schedule,&#8221; said PennDOT Senior Assistant Construction Engineer Steve Sneddon. &#8220;We are on track to meet our milestones and our completion date. Contractors have been putting in a lot of long hours, including working over the weekend, and you can really see that out there when you drive through.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For several weeks, I-79 has been closing or restricted during the overnight hours as the beams for the flyover bridges have arrived and been put into place, and now, according to Sneddon, the beam-setting process is complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a result, now you can see how northbound exiting and entering traffic will be flying over the interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was a big milestone for us to get those beams up over I-79,&#8221; Sneddon said. &#8220;It went well. They&#8217;re there, and so now, the process continues.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>With that work out of the way, Sneddon said that they do not anticipate any more closures on I-79.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Coming up next, the bridges will be finished with the end goal of putting all of the entering and exiting traffic of I-79 through a single intersection on the west side of the interstate, and eliminating the existing intersection on the east side.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You should see just an overall net improvement for congestion, safety, less queuing, and more efficient operation of all the traffic in the area,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The $46 million question is: when?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sneddon said the full contract completion date is October 2027. While weather could be a factor, if all goes well, it looks like in early November, it could be open to traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is no question that the Commercial Street Bridge\u00a0project was the big project of the year for PennDOT,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3568,3431,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-255448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-i-79","tag-penndot","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255448","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=255448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}