Freeport Road work to affect Fox Chapel motorists

Route 1 Butler Street bus, which normally crosses at the Highland Park Bridge, instead will go south on Route 28 to the 62nd Street Bridge, pick up passengers there and cross over to Butler Street to resume its normal route.

Authority spokesman Adam Brandolph said that will give Sharpsburg riders two buses they could catch at 62nd and Main streets to ride to Downtown instead of one.

“We’re trying to make sure people are inconvenienced as little as possible,” Mr. Brandolph said.

Route 1 carries about 1,700 weekday passengers and 2,100 on weekends, while Route 91 has 4,300 on weekdays and 3,400 on weekends.

Mr. Brandolph said rerouting the buses could add “a few minutes” to each route, but the agency doesn’t expect any major delays.

When that project is finished, work will start to replace a 45-foot culvert less than two miles away between Fox Chapel Road and South Oak Hill Road in O’Hara.

That project will detour cars onto Old Freeport Road, either at Fox Chapel Road or near Fairview Avenue. But inbound trucks will turn left on Fairview, right on Papercraft Avenue and right on Riverfront Drive.

About 15,400 vehicles a day use the culvert.

PennDOT spokesman Steve Cowan said the replacements aren’t part of the major Highland Park/ Route 28 interchange improvement the department is planning, but designers wanted them done before the major project that could start in late 2019.