PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge, from Station Square to Downtown, is set to undergo an $8.5 million renovation.
“This is a really old bridge and we have to be a little bit more mindful on a bridge like this to get ahead of things before deterioration gets too bad,” said Jason Zang with PennDOT.
He says the bridge will be getting new sidewalks, paint and steel reinforcement work.
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It’ll also get a new bridge deck epoxy coating.
“It’s different from most bridges because it’s so old,” explained Zang. “It’s got a light deck on it and there’s an epoxy overlay on there that protects that deck from all the de-icing salts that we use in the wintertime, so that’s getting replaced.”
Looking at the bridge from Downtown toward Station Square, the left side of the bridge will shut down, including the sidewalk.
The right side will have one lane in each direction open and that sidewalk will also remain open.
“In the spring, once we get all the work done on the east side of the bridge, we’ll be flipping lanes around,” said Zang. “We’re always going to maintain one lane in each direction.”
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It’s still unclear when the lane restrictions will begin though.
They were originally scheduled for Monday morning, but rain overnight delayed that.
“It’s weather-dependent, so if there’s rain in the forecast, they can’t do line painting, so we’ll keep an eye on the weather this week,” explained Zang. “It should happen one night, we’re not going to do it during the day, it has to happen at night. We’ll do it one night this week or next weekend.”
According to PennDOT, the project is slated for completion in summer 2024.
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