PennDOT hosting a public meeting tonight about the 25-day closure of the Parkway East

Tonight is the night to get all your questions answered about the upcoming long-term closure of the Parkway East for the replacement of the Commercial Street Bridge.

PennDOT will be hosting a virtual public meeting to lay out the plan that will detour 100,000 drivers per day in each direction as the massive bridge replacement project takes place outside of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel along Interstate 376.

When you talk about closing a major artery like the Parkway East for 25 days, you can imagine the volume and nature of questions that PennDOT is getting. 

"I've had some people reach out and actually say, I want to take a vacation," said PennDOT Senior Assistant Construction Manager John Myler.

Myler said he's been getting questions about how PennDOT crews are going to move such a large bridge -- and the answer is using 8-ton jacks, each the size of a large desk.

"It's going to take 42 of them to lift the 22 million pound bridge to slide it," Myler said.

Myler said that beyond the logistical questions, PennDOT wants to be able to answer practical questions that drivers have about how to navigate around the city without using the Parkway East.

"There's 100,000 vehicles a day," Myler said. "We want to get that outreach to them, get them the details for what they need to know."

Tonight, PennDOT will spell out the impact of the 25-day closure that will begin on July 10 and run through August 4 along with detours and possible alternatives.

"We're setting up PRT locations to help facilitate ridership and carpooling," Myler said.

Myler said he knows this is all very hard to wrap your head around.

"There's even a little amazement for us for what this is going to take," Myler said. "This is a very unique scale of a project to move something this large, so we're excited about that challenge as well."

One thing that PennDOT will make clear is that landlocked in the valley of Commercial Street, they won't be able to have people coming down to watch the implosion or any of the moving of the bridge -- but understand that people will want to see what's happening, so they are working on setting up live cameras.

People attending the virtual meeting tonight will be able to ask questions through Microsoft's Teams app.

The meeting is set to begin at 5 p.m. and is expected to last 90 minutes.