City officials were on Forward Avenue on Friday checking on the progress to clear and stabilize the hillside in Squirrel Hill.
Part of the road was shut down last week when the hillside was determined to be too dangerous, and that closure is causing hefty delays for school buses and other drivers who can no longer use the road.
On Friday, city crews cleaned up some of the falling debris on Forward and Commercial Street, and engineers hope to have some answers next week.
“We are here with the engineers, folks from the city and the property owners to determine what needs to be done,” said Guy Costa, the city’s chief operations officer. “So immediately we are going to be cleaning up the hillside and the roadway and then re-evaluate the situation on Monday.”
The road was shut down in March and later reopened. When the situation worsened a couple weeks ago, the city closed the road again. And it's been a burden to drivers who rely on the road as a shortcut to avoid the Squirrel Hill Tunnel traffic.
“Our public schools that go to Colfax, Minadeo and Allderdice, now they all go on the parkway,” said Councilman Corey O’Connor, whose district includes Squirrel Hill. “Kids are getting to school 40 to 50 minutes later than they usually do. So this has been a real burden on residents.”
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O'Connor said engineers are working as quickly as they can to evaluate the crumbling parking lot above Forward and the sliding hill.
“We have engineers talking to each other, and once they determine how solid the rock is, we will hopefully know what more we can tell everybody on Monday,” he said. “But the engineers are coordinating, all the efforts are coordinating, and I think everybody needs to know we are trying to rush this process, because we know how important this road is to so many people.”