North Hills Traffic Mess Expected As McCandless Bridge Work Begins
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Work is beginning this weekend on McKnight Road in McCandless, reducing traffic to a single lane in each direction.
It's a pattern that threatens to bottleneck traffic and will be in play well into the fall.
The Ingomar and Pine Creek bridges of McKnight Road are literally crumbling and must be rebuilt from the steel up.
That means removing all the concrete.
"So we're going to have bidirectional traffic," said Steve Cowan with PennDOT. "A single lane in each direction on the southbound side."
That's right, one lane in each direction and as you look at the volume of traffic in the middle of the day, you can kind of figure out what's ahead.
"It's going to be frustrating, it's going to be tough," Cowan added.
He also says once school starts, it's not going to get any easier.
As you are heading south towards the city, you will be pushed over into a single lane – the curb lane right in front of Target. Northbound traffic will be on the other side of a barrier, down the middle of the southbound lanes.
That will be the traffic pattern, around the curve and up to the light at Outback Steakhouse where the crossover will end and four lanes will resume.
"If you are familiar with the area, you might want to consider an alternative route," said Cowan.
They'll start creating new lanes Friday night and it will all be in place by Monday morning rush hour.
If everything goes as planned, half of the work should be done by September and the rest by early November, with traffic back to four lanes.
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