Jul 11, 2020 3 min read

There’s not much about this summer that’s normal, except for the heat.

And the road construction.

Construction projects of all stripes came to a halt in March when officials locked down much of Pennsylvania to combat COVID-19. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation projects got going again in phases, with all of them back in gear on May 1.

The marquee road construction project in the region is the ongoing work on the Southern Beltway. It is being spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, and work on it only started again after employees completed a training program designed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The guidelines the crews on the Southern Beltway must adhere to are compiled in a booklet that numbers 33 pages, according to Renee Colborn, a public information manager for the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. Once completed, the Southern Beltway will link Pittsburgh International Airport to Interstate 79 in Cecil Township. It had been on track to be finished by Fall 2021, Colborn explained, but a completion date is now uncertain due to the delays caused by the coronavirus shutdowns.

“We have yet to determine how that will affect the overall plan,” Colborn said.

Meanwhile, a menu of projects in PennDOT’s 12th district, which includes Washington, Greene, Fayette and Westmoreland counties, have gotten underway. They include a $10 million project on Jefferson Avenue in Washington that includes replacing parts of the road and drainage system, upgrading signals and replacing sidewalks. A website, PA18cityofwashington.com, details work on the project, which is set to be finished in September 2022.

PennDOT is carrying out work on Interstate 70 in the vicinity of Fallowfield Township, Twilight and Speers. The jobs include patching and resurfacing. The project was restarted May 4 and is set to be completed Oct. 30. Also, throughout Washington County, PennDOT will be carrying out repairs at 16 different bridges. Work is tentatively set to be completed at the end of August, and some areas will require lane closures.

While these projects are going forward, projects next year and in 2022 could be affected by the loss of revenue that’s resulted from the coronavirus, according to John Ofsanik, a spokesman for PennDOT.

“The impacts will be felt across the state,” he explained. PennDOT withdrew advertising for bids on 19 different projects, and seven projects that had been put out to bid, but were not yet under contract, were canceled.

Given the spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Southwestern Pennsylvania in recent days, is there the possibility that some projects could be shut down again?

“We have not developed plans to close down projects generally should such measures be enacted by the governor and the Department of Health,” Ofsanik said. He added that projects would need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, taking their cues from the health department, the governor’s office and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.