Skip to main content

After decades of frustration...PA 51 and PA 88 intersection finally to be redesigned

For decades, residents and commuters in Pittsburgh's South Hills have waited for drastic and much needed improvements at the intersections of PA 51 and 88 in the city's Overbrook neighborhood.  From failed expressway plans and intersection redesign plans, this was one bottleneck that many thought would never go away.

Well, by 2014, the notorious left lane back up on Northbound PA 51 with traffic wanting to turn onto Library Road (PA 88) , Glenbury St.,and buses wanting to access the South Busway will be no more.  The daily mess will be replaced by a two-lane jughandle which will run from near Fairhaven Road, behind the existing Rite Aid Pharmacy, and then utilize Ivyglen St. 

The jughandle will be the key feature to a project that will eliminate all left turns from PA 51 at the dangerous intersection.

Other improvements include a second jughandleon PA 51 South at Fairhaven Road.  This jughandle will also utilize Stewart Ave.  In addition, three structurally deficient bridges and two culverts will be rebuilt.  A third, new culvert will be built over Weyman Run along the northbound jughandle route.

The project will cost between $14 and 15 million.  Construction will begin in 2013 and finish the following year.  A few businesses, including the Hillview Tavern, will be lost in right-of-way acquisition.

Story Links:
PennDOT to unveil planes for Routes 51, 88 in Overbrook ---Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PennDot: 'Jug Handle Will Alleviate Route 88-51 Bottleneck ---WTAE-TV

Commentary:
In the P-G article, it leads with a line from a Joe Grata story in 1993, "The public will get its first detailed look today at plans to untangle the intersection of Routes 51 and 88 in Overbrook."  I remember that story, and a few others and prior to and after it on other plans and delays to revamp this intersection.  I recall a billboard being a problem in a right-of-way squabble.

The WTAE story mentioned how this isn't the ultimate solution but the most cost-effective, and it most likely is.  With any chance to build a urban expressway along the Saw Mill Run valley killed decades ago, the only way to improve any traffic flow patterns on PA 51 is do piecemeal minor improvements.  Over 10 years ago, the much needed Liberty Tunnels, West Liberty Avenue, and PA 51 interchange was built.  Later, improvements were made to the intersection of PA 51 and Woodruff Ave.  Now, the much needed improvements to the 51 and 88 intersection. 

Now only if the state would come up with the money to buy all of the blighted Levitske Brothers property along Saw Mill Run Blvd. and use that to widen Route 51.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The comment about the Levitskie Brothers signs is priceless!

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1