The City of Pittsburgh hosted a Penn Avenue Reconstruction Phase 2 community meeting on Thursday, November 7th at 6:00pm at the Bloomfield Garfield Corporation (113 N Pacific Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15224).

At the meeting DOMI shared information about the project scope, detours, and timelines and answered community questions about construction impacts, communication, overlapping construction timelines, and utility projects.

For a recording of the meeting, meeting minutes, and follow-up information about questions please visit the Meeting recap on the right sidebar or at the link below:

https://engage.pittsburghpa.gov/penn-avenue-phase-...

This project, which follows Phase 1 (Mathilda Street to Evaline Street), will consist of full-depth reconstruction of all street infrastructure in the project area, including the street, curb sidewalk, ADA ramps, and traffic signals, as well as other mobility and safety improvements.

The Penn Ave Phase II project will continue the improvements to the Penn Ave Streetscape between the intersections of Evaline Street and Graham Street, following the Phase I streetscape improvements between Mathilda and Evaline Streets.

How long will construction take?

Approximately 2 construction seasons. One construction season is from Spring to Fall of the same year.

Will there be Traffic Calming on the detour route?

The primary detour will take eastbound drivers off of Penn at Main St., direct them to Liberty Ave, Baum, and then Negley. That route will not have traffic calming added. A local detour will be in taking eastbound traffic on Winebiddle, Friendship, and Roup before returning to Penn Ave. Those streets will have temporary rubber speed humps and speed tables installed prior to construction. These speed tables will be evaluated for replacement with more permanent infrastructure post-construction.

Why isn't traffic calming being pre-emptively added to Dearborn or Broad St?

Eastbound traffic will be diverted off of Penn Ave while westbound traffic will remain on Penn, so we don't anticipate significant additional traffic on streets north of Penn Ave. During Phase 1, traffic impacts were almost exclusively identified south of Penn Ave.

Why wasn't this coordinated with ongoing utility work? Will there be additional work on the water lines during the project?

The City does coordinate with utilities prior to project implementation, but cannot mandate that the utilities do their work alongside City work. Performing work in the same area, at the same time, may have required longer and more complete closures than we currently expect. Neither Peoples Natural Gas nor Pittsburgh Water infrastructure is in the scope of the streetscape project and questions about water pressure and utility improvements should be directed to the utility companies.

When will there be another public meeting?

Most of the comments and feedback received have been about construction and implementation, rather than project design features. Construction implementation is largely dependent on the contractor selected, which will take place over the spring and summer of 2025. Until then a lot of the answers will be the same as at the November 7th Meeting, which can be revisited here. We anticipate a pre-construction meeting with the contractor in late summer or fall of 2025.