Nov 21, 2018 2 min read

Just in time for holiday traffic, crews Tuesday removed the traffic split in the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 in the Washington area.

“We have a big day here today,” said Scott Faieta, assistant construction engineer for the state Department of Transportation. “We’re in the process of getting rid of the crossover and the split. The westbound traffic will all be moved onto the new pavement of the westbound side.”

The project, to reconstruct and widen a 5 ½-mile stretch of I-70 between the East Beau Street and Route 519/Eighty Four exits, has been going on for about a year and a half. The westbound traffic had been crossed over to the eastbound side of the highway so crews could work on the new westbound lanes. While that work was done, the existing westbound lanes had been split in the area of the south junction. Faieta said most of the westbound work has been completed.

Faieta said PennDOT hoped to have the switch completed by 3 p.m., but westbound motorists and drivers heading north from Waynesburg on Interstate 79 were expected to encounter delays.

“Hopefully, that’s only going to be today while we switch the traffic,” he said. “We wanted to get this done today, because we didn’t want to have the split traffic going for the Thanksgiving holiday.”

Faieta said next year, PennDOT will do a similar crossover to complete the eastbound lanes. The $118 million project is scheduled to be completed in November 2020.