Explosive demolition of Parkway East Commercial Street Bridge set for Wednesday

The explosive demolition of Pittsburgh's Commercial Street Bridge is scheduled for Wednesday.

PennDOT announced on Tuesday that crews will blow up the Interstate 376 bridge on July 15, weather permitting. It's scheduled to happen between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., with a more specific timeframe expected as details develop. 

PennDOT says the explosion will only happen after crews and emergency personnel have cleared the blast radius on the ground and in the air, making sure everything is safe. 

Residents should anticipate a loud sound and additional dust afterwards, though they can go about their day normally, PennDOT says. 

People can watch a livestream of the demolition on PennDOT's website.

Crews are blowing up the bridge in between the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and the Edgewood/Swissvale interchange to make way for the new bridge that has been built beside it. Once the old bridge is gone, workers will slide the new bridge into place. It'll be one of the largest lateral side projects performed in Pennsylvania, PennDOT said. 

During this work, part of the Parkway East will be closed through Aug. 3. While a 25-day closure may seem inconvenient, conventional construction methods would have required about four years of work. PennDOT says this one-and-done closure is preferable to years of squeezing parkway traffic to one side and enduring continuous lane closures and restrictions.

Traffic will be detoured during the closure, and drivers can look at real-time updates of how traffic is flowing online.