Deteriorating Greenfield Bridge To Be Torn Down By End Of Year
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – After nearly a century of connecting Greenfield to Oakland and Squirrel Hill, old age and decrepitude have gotten the better of the Greenfield Bridge and it's time to say goodbye.
"It's a major link for motorist, pedestrians and bikers. We know it's going to be an inconvenience, but it's a 93-year-old bridge that needs to come down," said Guy Costa, the city's operations director.
At 10 p.m. Friday night, the venerable old span will close down for good.
Then, come Monday, workers will begin dismantling as much of the deck as possible in anticipation of its ultimate demotion but not before a little celebration
Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers will headline Saturday's Greenfield Bridgefest, a community party and a last bit of fun before the headaches begin.
"We're working on all sorts of detours and we're going to modify and change the traffic signaling wherever necessary, working with CMU and our Public Safety Department. But again, the emphasis is for those people coming in from Monroeville and the other side of the city, the whole entire Parkway underneath us is going to be closed down, which is going to be quite a sight to be seen for that almost five-day period," Pittsburgh Public Works Director Mike Gable said.
The city will be working with smart traffic engineers from Carnegie Mellon to find solutions to bottleneck and backups, but the real nightmare is a little more than two months away.
"Beginning on Christmas night, for five days, the Parkway East - Interstate 376 - will be shut down so the bridge can be imploded, dropped, and then cleaned up," said Costa.
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A good week to plan a Christmas vacation as the implosion and the subsequent cleanup is expected to turn the city into gridlock with commuters from the eastern suburbs trying to get downtown.
"I will have to find other ways around because it's going to be a lot more crowded," said Patty Epps.
But Greenfielders like Epps say it'll be worth it in about 20 month when this new bridge will open.
"And it'll be a nice new bridge without a diaper," she says.
PennDOT District 11 Executive Director Dan Cessna joined the "KDKA Morning News" to talk about how the demolition of the Greenfield Bridge will affect the Parkway East.
Cessna says the detours, "will not be pleasant." He adds the detours are similar to Parkway closures in the past, but "we've never closed both directions [of the Parkway East] at one time."
Cessna says the five days after Christmas has the least amount of traffic of the year.
"I'll be honest, you're not really going to want to endure those detours because we would expect significant traffic backups continuously," he said.
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