Major Pittsburgh bridge connecting city neighborhoods shut down for at least 4 months

PITTSBURGH — The City of Pittsburgh announced Wednesday that the Charles Anderson Memorial Bridge will close “immediately” to vehicle traffic for repairs.

This bridge is a critical link on the Boulevard of the Allies and connects Squirrel Hill and Greenfield to Oakland and Downtown.

The repairs are estimated to “take no fewer than four months” and is projected to cost between $1 million and $2 million, according to a release from the city.

The city said the bridge will remain open to pedestrians and bicycles. The Junction Hollow Trail, which runs below the bridge, will stay open as well.

“I made a pledge to the residents of Pittsburgh that I will not hesitate to close a bridge for the safety of our citizens,” said Mayor Ed Gainey. “Inspection results have come back that tell us this bridge needs repair work to be safe for traffic. It’s because of the safety systems that we have put in place over the last year that we can act immediately, and proactively, to close this bridge — preventing another Fern Hollow.”

While the bridge is closed, here are the detours provided by the city:

For eastbound/outbound vehicles: Boulevard of the Allies, right onto Bates Street, left onto Second Avenue, left onto Greenfield Avenue, left onto Ronald Street, right onto Alger Street, left onto Greenfield Bridge, to Greenfield Road, to Panther Hollow Road

For westbound/inbound vehicles: Panther Hollow Road, to Greenfield Road, to Greenfield Bridge, right onto Alger Street, left onto Winterburn Street, right onto Greenfield Avenue, right onto Second Avenue, right onto Bates Street.

The bridge is already slated for a full $48 million rehabilitation. The city said it’s now looking into avenues for expediting the existing timeline of the project due to the preemptive closure.

Gainey released an updated statement about the project’s budget on Thursday.

“The $6 million in the 2022 capital budget for the Charles Anderson Bridge was a projection by the previous administration as to when state and federal funding could become available for construction work on the Charles Anderson Bridge to potentially start. This was a projection and not an allocation. The City’s Capital Budget is only adopted for a single year. As the annual budgets over the next five years in the Capital Improvement Plan are adopted the phasing and amounts are refined as project statuses change. There was never $6 million allocated for Charles Anderson Bridge for this year. Further major infrastructure projects are reliant on TIP (Transportation Improvement Program) approval and funding via the Southwestern PA Commission (TIP-200-Report-January-2023.pdf (spcregion.org) (https://bit.ly/SPCTIP0123)) - which as of January 2023 has moved those projects into funding starting in 2027, with an estimated construction bid opening date of September 2025. We are in the process of trying to expedite that funding as we both repair the bridge and plan the full rehabilitation of the project,” said Gainey.

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