PennDOT plans Squirrel Hill Tunnel Project (Pittsburgh, Wilkinsburg: contractors, live, cost)

[BrianTH]

Courtesy of a poster at another forum, here is the article:

Squirrel Hill Tunnel revamp down road - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Some excerpts:

PennDOT plans to tackle a traffic bottleneck on the Parkway East when it rehabilitates and raises the roof on the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. The department will award a contract late next year for the three-year project, expected to cost $50 million to $60 million, said Guy Rettura, project manager for PennDOT. A major component will involve removing the concrete ceiling above the travel lanes, which limits the maximum height of vehicles in the tunnel to 13 feet, 6 inches . . . .

Removing the ceiling will expose the tunnel's arched roof and raise the vertical clearance, which Rettura hopes would reduce the number of overheight trucks that stop traffic as they turn around outside the tunnels. Although the project can't add lanes to the twin-bore tunnels opened beneath Squirrel Hill in 1955, making them less claustrophobic could have a positive psychological effect on drivers and cause traffic to move faster.

"When we're going into someplace that's confining, it's the equivalent of 10,000 years ago, going into a dark cave," said Paul Friday, chief of clinical psychology at UPMC Shadyside. "When this 10 million-year-old part of your brain says, 'be careful,' you put your foot on the brake." Widening the tunnel entrance should mitigate that ancient instinct, he said. . . .

Most work will require single-lane closures at night, and total closures spread out over three to five weekends, Rettura said. During the closures, traffic will detour onto Route 8 through Wilkinsburg to Braddock Avenue, then to Forbes Avenue into Squirrel Hill, down Murray Avenue to Forward Avenue and back to the parkway. . . .

Contractors will repair deteriorating concrete, loose tiles and leaking expansion joints; mill and resurface the roadway; and improve safety equipment such as the fire hydrant system and carbon monoxide detectors. They'll replace lights and the electrical system with parts identical to those in the Fort Pitt and Liberty tunnels, and will add traffic cameras, better drainage and a new overheight truck detection system.

If they could actually get fewer people to instinctively slow down in the tunnel, that could be a significant benefit.

[Pitt Chick]

That is going to be a holy nightmare for those of us to the east....

[BrianTH]

They've done nighttime single lane closures before, and it isn't too bad. The total closures on a few weekends should be "interesting"--I just hope they pay attention to the sports schedules.

[mjost7]

Yes, but how would one overcome millions of years of evolution?

I think one way of summarizing these sorts of discussions is to ask whether human behavior can be changed on a large scale or whether designers or those in charge of infrastructure funding can better understand human behavior (that has perhaps evolved over millions of years) and design for it.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by mjost7

I think one way of summarizing these sorts of discussions is to ask whether human behavior can be changed on a large scale or whether designers or those in charge of infrastructure funding can better understand human behavior (that has perhaps evolved over millions of years) and design for it.

Certainly in this project they are basically admitting the instinctual behavior can't be changed, which is why they have to modify the tunnel to cut back on the cues that trigger this behavior.

[groar]

yeah, not looking forward to the closures! making the tunnel taller will certainly help with the overheight truck thing, but i don't know whether the height will really stop people from slowing down. if it works, that'd be great though!

i wish they could do something about that horrible entrance in squirrel hill going east, where there's a stop sign and then you're in an exit only lane and have to get over. that definitely contributes a lot to the 376 rush hour mess.

[fleetiebelle]

i wish they could do something about that horrible entrance in squirrel hill going east, where there's a stop sign and then you're in an exit only lane and have to get over. that definitely contributes a lot to the 376 rush hour mess.

That's an awful exit. I've always thought that it should be closed and traffic directed to get on the Parkway at Edgewood/Swissvale.

[BrianTH]

I'm not sure widening the entrances and raising the roof will work either, but it doesn't seem implausible to me. Certainly I think there is more inexplicable slowing down entering the Squirrel Hill Tunnel than at any other tunnel I have driven through, and so this might well help.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by fleetiebelle

That's an awful exit. I've always thought that it should be closed and traffic directed to get on the Parkway at Edgewood/Swissvale.

Unfortunately there is no easy way to get over there.

[groar]

yeah, the quickest route from squirrel hill to that exit is fairly complicated and involves taking windy back roads that would not adjust well to significantly increased traffic.