Commercial Street closing again for next phase of bridge replacement project

Commercial Street, which runs underneath the Parkway East outside of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, was closed on Thursday so that testing work could be done for next month's bridge replacement project.

Now, the next phase of the upcoming Parkway East closure will go into effect on Monday, June 29. Commercial Street, along with parts of Forward Avenue and Nine Mile Run Trail, will close as PennDOT continues its sliding replacement project of the Commercial Street Bridge.

The closure is expected to run through early August while the bridge is being replaced.  

"Normally, there's not a lot of traffic on it," said Sam Corbin, who drives the street each day on his way from Summerhill to Irwin. "I'll have to detour, I'll have to take the Homestead Bridge, so I can kind of just cut out 376 from my drive, so it's not too bad for me, but it'll take a few more minutes."

He recognizes that some of his neighbors will be more impacted than others.

"If they take it most days to get into the city, there's not a ton of great detours around that," Corbin said. "It's kind of a long way around."

It took a KDKA-TV crew roughly 15 minutes to drive the detour route from Swisshelm Park to Squirrel Hill via the New Fern Hollow Bridge. Driving back between the same points on Commercial Street took just under three minutes. 

Most of his neighbors, Corbin said, are more concerned about the upcoming Parkway East closure. 

"I think most people are, you know, going to be trying to figure out what they're going to do, because a lot of other routes will get busier now," Corbin said. 

While Commercial Street was closed on Thursday and Friday between Whipple Street and Summerset Drive, PennDOT did a test run for the upcoming replacement of the bridge along the Parkway East before the demolition of the existing bridge and sliding in of the new bridge. 

For the bridge replacement, the Parkway East is expected to be closed completely from July 10 through August 3. 

During that 25-day closure, PennDOT crews will be demolishing the existing Commercial Street Bridge and sliding in the new bridge, which has been constructed alongside the Parkway East outside of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel.

PennDOT will be implementing extensive detour routes during the closure, which have been posted online, along with more information, such as frequently asked questions about the project.