Parkway North Reconstruction: Headaches Shift To Outbound Lanes

PITTSBURGH, PA - The Parkway North HOV lanes will close for three weeks next week as PennDOT begins work on the second phase of the $88 million parkway improvement project. Last year focused on the southbound lanes; this year, northbound motorists will be impacted.

The HOV lanes will be closed around the clock from February 19 through March 11 so crews can begin prep work in anticipation of shifting northbound mainline I-279 traffic into the HOV lanes near the McKnight Road-Evergreen Road Exit. The shift is expected to occur on March 11.

What else can motorists expect? Here’s a rundown:

• On March 11, a single lane of northbound traffic will be crossed over into the southbound lanes at the Perrysville Avenue interchange to just north of the Camp Horne Road interchange.

The left-hand lane that will cross over will be an express lane and traffic using it won’t have access to the Perrysville Avenue, Bellevue-West View and Camp Horne Road interchanges.
The Perrysville park-and-ride off-ramp from the HOV lanes will serve as the Perrysville Avenue exit as motorists won’t have access to the Perrysville Avenue off-ramp.

• The southbound Route 65 ramp to northbound I-279 will be closed from early April to mid-June for deck repairs and expansion dam replacement.

When that work concludes, mainline I-279 will be reduced to a single lane for two month on the North Shore viaduct between the northbound Route 28 Chestnut Street-East Ohio Street-Etna exit off-ramp and the northbound I-579 merge point. Motorists can take an alternate route via Route 28 and Madison Avenue.

• PennDOT will lengthen the ramp from the Veterans Bridge to the outbound parkway by about 1,000 feet and the ramp from Madison Avenue to the parkway by 2,000 feet.

• The bridge carrying mainline I-270 and the northbound Perrysville Avenue on-ramp will be widened to allow an 800-foot expansion of the ramp.

• Camp Horne Road and Union Avenue will be resurfaced.

Photo via Shutterstock.