PennDOT to display its plans for I-70/Route 51 interchange

Project to start in 2022, take 3 years

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Work is still about four years down the road, but the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wants public input this week on an estimated $100 million project to rebuild the area around the Interstate 70 interchange at Route 51 in Westmoreland County.

The 2.1-mile project will involve a stretch of the interstate in Rostraver and South Huntington from the Smithton High-Level Bridge to about 1 mile west of the Route 51 interchange. The work also will include redesigning the interchange into a diverging diamond to improve safety, widening Route 51 and replacing a railroad bridge to provide more clearance and allow the wider highway.

The agency will display plans developed by consultant Gannett Fleming Inc. from 5 to7 p.m. Wednesday at Rostraver Central Fire Hall, 1100 Fells Church Road, Belle Vernon.

Barry V. Lyons, senior project manager for PennDOT, said Gannett has been gathering traffic, environmental and other information for the past year to develop preliminary plans for the I-70/Route 51 project. It’s part of the total reconstruction of the the interstate through Washington and Westmoreland counties to theOhio border.

Designers are recommending the diverging diamond interchange after considering four possibilities because it would be safer, Mr. Lyons said.

A diverging diamond moves traffic through the interchange on the left side of the road, which eliminates potentially deadly left turns across traffic by allowing motorists to merge directly from one road to another. In addition, the project will include substantially longer merging and exiting lanes.

The department opened its first diverging diamond last year at the I-70/Route 19 interchange in South Strabane, Washington County, and police say traffic accidents have been reduced substantially.

“We’re getting no complaints on the diamond there,” Mr. Lyons said. “We lookedat all of the possibilities and we feel it’s an appropriate design for this interchange. It can pretty much fit within the existing footprint of the interchange.”

The project calls for widening the interstate, which carries about 33,000 vehicles a day, by increasing the median from 4 feet to 12 feet and the outside shoulders from 10 feet to 12 feet. The roadway will continue to have two 12-foot lanes in each direction. The project also will involve some improvements to the Smithton bridge, which last was updated in the mid1990s.

In addition to the interstate work, the project will include improvements to Route 51 as itapproaches I-70.

The work will include widening the highway to include turning lanes, raising and lengthening a Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway bridge and relocating Finley Road. That work will be on both sides of the interchange, from just south of Ridge Road to just north of Concord Lane near theBurger King restaurant.

Route 51 in that area is 44 feet wide, not wide enough to accommodate turning lanes. To widen the highway to 84 feet, PennDOT will have to replace the railroad bridge, which Mr. Lyons said will be “a challenge.”

The project also proposes raising clearance under the bridge from 13 feet, 10 inches to at least 16 feet, 6 inches.

Finley Road’s connection with Route 51, now very close to the interchange, would be moved about 600 feet south to the intersection where Route 981 meets it on the other side ofthe highway.

Route 51 carries about 18,000 vehicles a day north of I70and about 15,000 a day going south.

Mr. Lyons said the project should begin construction in 2022 and take about three years to complete.