Oct 13, 2015 2 min read

Drivers traveling east on Interstate 70 at the Murtland Avenue interchange in South Strabane Township will have a very abbreviated detour late Thursday into early Friday.

Starting about 10 p.m. Thursday until about 2 a.m. Friday, all vehicles will exit the highway at Murtland Avenue, cross over Route 19, and then get back on the highway.

“We have to shut down the eastbound lanes to make repairs to barriers and (guard) rails that have been damaged,” said Scott Faieta, assistant construction engineer for the state Department of Transportation. “We really don’t expect it to have any effect on traffic.”

“We are still working on the main line, doing concrete tie-ins at the ramps,” he added. “The bridge deck has been placed and later this week, we will pour the bridge parapets.”

Paving work also will be done on Route 19 this week, Faieta said.

Next month, crews will start the process of returning traffic on both the interstate and Route 19 to normal traffic conditions in anticipation of winter. Faieta said the target date to start the process is Nov. 9 and if that date does not work, it will start Nov. 16.

“All of the traffic has to be moved back by Nov. 23,” Faieta said. “It will take some time to get it back to the original configuration.”

“Traffic coming from Interstate 79 southbound to Interstate 70 eastbound will soon have a long ramp for merging,” he added. “That will eliminate those occasional backups.”

While there will be three new lanes on the eastbound side, Faieta said the lane closest to the median will be blocked with barriers to protect crews working during the winter.

“We have five more weeks of work,” Faieta said. “So far, so good as far as weather. But it is October, you might get snow or it might be 80 degrees.”

Golden Triangle Construction of Imperial started last September on the $51 million project to construct a diverging diamond interchange.

The project is scheduled to be done in November 2017.