PennDOT begins work on landslides

It has been two years since the start of 2018’s record rainfall of 57.71 inches, but because of a combination of unstable slopes, extensive engineering and lack of funding, some landslides that happened that year are just beginning to get remedial attention.

Contractors for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will begin corrective action Monday on slides in North Fayette, Monroeville and Penn Hills. PennDOT is dealing with more than 120 slides throughout the region and has established a priority list for addressing them that includes whether the slide has closed the only access to an area and how much traffic uses the road.

The biggest project, on Noblestown Road in North Fayette, Collier and Oakdale, will involve fixing a slide and paving 5.4 miles of the road between Union Avenue in Oakdale and Interstate 79. Mele & Mele & Sons has a $4.37 million contract for the work.

PennDOT spokesman Steve Cowan said the project will begin at 9 a.m. Monday with the closure of Noblestown between Gregg Station and Nike Site roads to work on the slide near Pinkerton Run Road. While one crew works there, another crew will perform milling, resurfacing and drainage improvements on the rest of the roadway.

Flaggers will enforce a singlelane of alternating traffic in the

resurfacing area from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. through December.

Work in the area of the slide should be finished by mid-June, allowing that section to open to alternating traffic.

In Monroeville, Allison Park Contractors Inc. has a $1.36 million contract to fix a slide on Northern Pike. The project will close Northern Pike at 9 a.m. Monday between Abers Creek Road and Valerie Circle until early June.

Motorists will be able to use the left-turn lane from westbound Route 22 to get to Resolutions Med Spa and UPMC Orthopedic

Specialists on Northern Pike, but traffic won’t be allowed beyond that point.

The project also includes other work that will continue until midJuly.

The smallest project involves remedial work to correct a slide on Indiana Road in Penn Hills.

The road will close between Hulton and Hamil roads at 7 a.m. Monday through late May.

Plum Contracting Inc. has a $1.97 million contract to correct this slide and two others by mid-November.