Commuters beware: Events to tie up North Shore, Downtown

Twice a season, the Pirates host Education Days: afternoon affairs that enable thousands of students to attend a baseball game.

It can also be a learning experience for commuters looking for North Shore parking places and ways to maneuver through additional traffic and detours.

Jim Trdinich, a spokesman for the Pirates, said 8,000 students from 47 schools will be transported to PNC Park for Wednesday’s 12:35 p.m. game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The students will be brought in aboard roughly 100 buses that will eat up curbside parking — and traffic lanes — on North Shore Drive and Reedsdale Street from Mazeroski Way to Heinz Field until the game is over.

The event, combined with an 11:30 a.m. pep rally at Market Square for the Penguins’ Stanley Cup Final game Wednesday evening, promises to produce frustrated drivers stuck in Downtown intersections and the familiar sound of horns honking.

And add to all that the fact that North Shore cash parking lots near PNC Park are closed to daily commuters Wednesday.

Still, officials with the team and the city don’t anticipate the snarl to amount to more than Pittsburghers can handle. The Pirates, who host two Education Days a year, anticipate no issues, and a city spokesman said the Department of Public Safety will provide its usual support around the ballpark and at city intersections. The Pirates’ Education Days — for elementary and middle schoolR., Sr. students throughout the region — combine classroom curriculum with baseball using an interactive workbook. The program, developed by the team in conjunction with Kittanning Middle School, Carson Middle School in McCandless and Great American Opportunities, was started in 2007.