Showing the effects of nearly seven decades of weather and wear, the Pittsburgh's Commercial Street Bridge needs replacement, with $123 million already set aside for design and construction. But the Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation now must decide how to carry out the multiyear project with the least disruption to the bridge’s nearly 100,000 daily users and surrounding environment.
Completed in 1951 and rehabilitated twice in the intervening years, the 861-ft-long three-arch concrete bridge rises 80 ft above a park-like valley east of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel on I-376.