With rain gone, work resumes today on Southern Beltway

After a rainy April that was mostly a washout for road construction, major activity resumes Thursday on the next section of the Southern Beltway along the Washington-Allegheny County border.

Trumbull Corp. outlined plans Wednesday at the South Fayette Township Volunteer Fire Department in Cuddy for two years of construction. Crews will move about 3 million cubic yards of dirt and rocks to build a 1.7-mile stretch of the new toll road from Route 50 to a point near the interchange with Interstate 79 under a $37.8 million contract with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

“Our project is predominantly an earth-moving exercise,” Paul Boggs, project manager for Trumbull, told about 50 residents. “The work will begin now.”

Beginning Wednesday, Coal Pit Run Road will be permanently closed. Hickory Grade Road will be closed through midNovember 2019 while crews cut a 70-foot-deep valley for the beltway. Then, a 300-foot-long bridge will be built above that cut for Hickory Grade Road traffic.

Melissa and Lou Quatro know this project better than most residents. They live at one end of the proposed bridge in South Fayette and lost three of their 10 acres for the project. They aren’t happy with the way the turnpike treated them during the process and haven’t settled their case with the agency.

“You can’t stop a road but you can certainly treat people right,” said Melissa Quatro, whose daughter had lived on the part of the property taken for the highway. “The good news is the Trumbull people and [project manager CDR] Maguire have been great and they’re the people who will be here.”

Work on this part of the beltway is among 12 contracts to build the 13-mile, $800 million stretch from I-79 to Route 22. The first part of the beltway, the Findlay Connector, is open, and the last section, from I-79 to the Mon-Fayette Expressway in Jefferson Hills, is still under design.

“Once this is done, it’s going to be a massive improvement... from I-79 to the airport,” Mr. Boggs said. “At the end of the day, this is going to be a big benefit to the region.”