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Work beginning on new Southern Beltway section in South Fayette

By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 3 min read
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Part of Millers Run Road in South Fayette Township closed Dec. 4 as work begins on another section of the Southern Beltway.

The 1.84-mile stretch Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission refers to as Section 55C1-1, from Cecil-Reissing Road to Route 50, joins two portions to the west already in progress toward eventually connecting Route 22 with Interstate 79.

The Millers Run closure is in the vicinity of Reed Street, near the South Fayette-Cecil Township line, and will continue through mid-2019. The posted detour is along Route 50.

The 13-mile Southern Beltway has a price tag of $710 million and is targeted to open in late 2020, according to engineer John Dzurko, representing the Turnpike Commission.

He was among the officials from the commission and various contractors who attended a community meeting Nov. 29 at SNPJ Lodge No. 6 in South Fayette to answer questions about the 55C1-1 project.

About 50 local residents attended, many to learn more about blasting that is to occur as part of the excavation work. The Turnpike Commission and contractor Beaver Excavating Co. strongly encourages owners of property within 1,000 feet of the project to participate in pre-blast survey inspections, conducted by independent consultants, to help safeguard against damage.

Notification measures include publishing blast schedules in local newspapers and sounding a series of alarms before each blast occurs, according to information provided by the commission.

Work on 55C1-1 involves other street closures, including Reissing Road in Cecil from April through June while a new road to the nearby turnpike maintenance facility is built. When that wraps up, construction will start on reconfiguring Cecil-Reissing and Cecil-Sturgeon roads, both near the South Fayette-Cecil line.

Plans call for Cecil-Reissing to be rerouted along the northern side of the beltway to intersect with Cecil-Sturgeon, which in turn will continue south on a bridge above the highway.

Further interruptions of traffic flow are expected throughout the life of the project.

“The longest one is probably going to be when we erect the beams for the bridges over Route 50,” Beaver Excavating project manager Pat Keith said. “That’s only going to be night work, so it’s going to be shut down from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.”

The final phase 55C1-1 is the road connecting Route 50 with the beltway interchange, scheduled for completion in Fall 2019.

The project is expected to entail 3.5 million cubic yards of excavated materials, while the total for the overall length of the beltway is estimated at 27 million.

“If you stacked all these cubic yards on top of each other, it would reach one-tenth of the way to the moon,” Dzurko said. “Also, if you placed them out on a football field, the pile would be nearly 2.4 miles high.”

For more information, visit www.patpconstruction.com/southern_beltway/22to79.

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