Neighbors living along Commercial Street Bridge detours excited about potential early opening
As work continues on the Commercial Street Bridge, there's hope that it will be done ahead of the Aug. 3 deadline. It's great news for the 100,000 drivers who use it every day, and even more welcome by the neighborhoods taking on extra traffic from the detours.
Neighbors in both Swisshelm Park and Regent Square are glad to hear the Parkway East could reopen ahead of the deadline. While KDKA was out in those neighborhoods on Tuesday, multiple drivers asked us how to get around the detours.
Brake lights on South Braddock Avenue in Regent Square are a common sight during this construction.
"My 20-minute trip to the Giant Eagle takes about 40 minutes because of all the construction right down at the intersection," Regent Square Civic Association president Jon Danzak said.
According to Danzak, there's normally about 30,000 cars that go through the neighborhood each day. That's skyrocketed in the last couple of weeks.
"Especially around rush hours. You're going to have to plan an alternate route," he said about the traffic.
On the other side of the Parkway in Swisshelm Park, they are dealing with navigation apps telling people Commercial Street is open when it's not. So drivers come into the residential neighborhood, sometimes lost, adding more traffic to the normally quiet streets.
"We've seen people from Iowa and other places. The neighbors are talking to them. They are begging for directions. They don't know where they are," Swisshelm Forward treasurer Kurt Colborn said.
PennDOT says it can't control drivers getting lost on detours, but it can control the work finishing early. PennDOT hopes the Parkway East can reopen as soon as the middle of next week.
"I don't think anybody in the whole city is going to complain about that," Colborn said with a laugh.
Neighbors credit that to planning and getting this project together before closing streets.
"A lot of invisible things happen that we don't see with government that we need to give them credit for," Danzak said.
KDKA reached out to Apple and Google about their apps to see why their maps have shown Commercial Street open at some points over the past few days.
Commercial Street is planned to open around Aug. 3.
