Green Tree residents say noise from Parkway West keeps getting worse

PITTSBURGH — Several Green Tree residents are asking the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to do something about the increase in noise coming from the Parkway West.

Neighbors whose back yard leads into the Parkway West said there is noise coming from the highway at all hours.

“My neighbor is the Parkway and it’s gotten progressively worse over the past five years that I’ve been here,” Mark Hoffman said.

Accord to PennDOT officials, 74,000 vehicles travel the Parkway West between Green Tree and Carnegie on a daily basis.

That’s three times more traffic than when Tom Aubrecht and his wife bought their home in 1970.

“It’s something that’s happened gradually over the years,” Aubrecht said.

Several residents told Channel 11’s Trisha Pittman that they’re in favor of PennDOT building a sound barrier to keep some of the noise out of their homes.

“They planted evergreen trees and they died because of the pollution from the automobiles,” Aubrecht said about PennDOT’s first effort to buffer the noise.

PennDOT officials said they plan to spend between $80 and $90 million on rehabbing the Parkway West between Green Tree and Carnegie. That money would include a sound barrier wall on the inbound side.

“It’s just becoming unbearable. You can hear it even with the windows shut,” Christine Johnson said.

The project is still three to five years away, and will only happen if Senate Bill One passes. The Transportation Bill passed in the Senate and is now hung up in the State House.

If the Transportation Bill doesn’t pass, homeowners said they’ll be forced to make a tough decision.

“We’ve talked about it, and we’ll probably have to put our home up for sale. So it’s a shame,” Johnson said.

WPXI