PennDOT announces Saturday traffic restrictions on New Kensington bridge

Traffic will be restricted on the New Kensington bridge on Saturdays beginning this weekend and lasting through early June, PennDOT announced Thursday.

Traffic on the two-lane bridge will be limited to a single, alternating lane from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Saturday as part of a $24.6 million preservation project that started in March.

A date for the final Saturday restriction was not given.

Traffic is being restricted on the bridge as-needed between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays through late this year, PennDOT spokesman Steve Cowan said. Traffic also will be stopped at times for up to 10 minutes over the next month.

Work on the bridge, spanning the Allegheny River between East Deer and New Kensington, includes a latex overlay, structural steel and concrete repairs, full painting, expansion dam replacement, installation of new lighting and approach roadway work.

As work is done this year, drivers can expect lanes to be narrowed and flaggers to be controlling traffic, PennDOT said.

The bridge is expected to be closed for six weeks, with all traffic detoured, for work that includes a latex overlay and structural steel repairs at expansion dams.

While PennDOT previously said the closure is expected to happen in the summer of 2024, Cowan on Thursday said the schedule has not been finalized “as we are in the earliest stages of this project.”

All work is expected to be finished in the fall of 2024.

About 15,850 vehicles cross the bridge daily, according to PennDOT.

The bridge, built in 1927, was last rehabilitated with a new deck in 1989. In 1984, it was named for C.L. Schmitt, a state representative from 1964 to 1980 who died in 1993.