Traffic in Pittsburgh

I think this has been mentioned, but I am going to mention it again because it is happening.

Traffic in Pittsburgh from July 10 to August 3, 2026 will be very bad. PennDot has closed Interstate 376 (what we call "the Parkway") from Beechwood Blvd on the west (right before the Squirrel Hill Tunnel) to the Braddock Ave exit on the east (I think that's the Swissvale exit). There are detours. One goes through Homestead and would affect people trying to get to the Pump House or locations near that. Of course there is also the issue of the GAP trail being closed near the Pump House, which I believe Rivnuts has posted about.

The purpose of closing I376 is to replace the Commercial St. Bridge. You can go to pa.gov/CommercialStBridge for updated information, call 1-800-FIX-Road or email CommStBridgeProject@pa.gov.

I suggest that if you are going to be riding the GAP trail starting in Pittsburgh you try to see if this road closure will affect where you are trying to get to and from via car. The first day it was closed was yesterday, Sat. 7-11-26. A lot of people were trying to get to Homestead to see the "Big Boy" train traveling through the area. They missed it sitting in traffic. It's too bad no one at PennDot considered postponing the closing by 24 hours so people could get to see that event. But I guess we don't pay folks at PennDot to think like that. But as much as we pay the expert traffic engineers at PennDot, you'd think one of them would have figured that out.

Here's an update on the affect of closing a segment of I-376 ("the Parkway") on traffic in Pittsburgh:

I've driven during rush hour (4:30 pm - 6:00 pm) as well as other times. There are traffic backups during rush hour, but in my opinion if you do not have to be at a certain place by a certain time, the traffic is not over the top bad. It simply sucks. That said, I have not driven in Homestead during rush hour. I think that's the most likely place that can impact GAP bicyclists.

During non-rush hour times, I've been able to get places that are on or close to the detour routes in a decent timeframe. Keep in mind I am a local and know where to divert off the detour route to neighboring streets. Non-locals may not be able to do that.

Now, about the air quality, it's really bad. But we should get some rain tomorrow which will help. But the Canadian wildfire smoke will probably return. Of course with the new tariffs for Canada, maybe the smoke will stay in Canada. Who knew you could control wild fire smoke with tariffs?

The ability of tariffs to restrict the smoke from crossing into the US is similar to building a wall to keep out the migrant Canadian geese. ????

Woo hoo!!! (sp?) Anyway, the parkway (I-376) opened ahead of schedule last night. The Commercial Street Bridge is complete. Because it opened early the contractor gets a $2M bonus, which in my opinion is well deserved. There was news coverage about the first car to cross the new bridge (an unsuspecting couple just trying to get home). And to add interest to the story, today workers "inadvertently" came into contact with dynamite that had not exploded during the bridge demolition. I don't think there were any injuries. This whole thing has been fascinating. So now all anyone needs to worry about or deal with is normal run of the mill Pittsburgh traffic. Let's all remember it definitely could be worse.