6/10: Weekend In Lockdown
4:30 p.m.
• So I was pondering coming into work this weekend to finish up some stuff, but then I heard on the radio Friday that a major road into Shittsburgh was going to be closed all weekend. That’s right. ALL WEEKEND. Oh, and there was some concert going on at Heinz Field Saturday. I decided to stay home.
I think I was right on this one.
Melissa Geibel's trip from Butler County to the Kenny Chesney concert at Heinz Field was going just fine Saturday until Route 28 brought her and friends to the 31st Street Bridge.
And then ...
"Everyone just stopped. People got out of their cars there and were going from car to car partying," said Geibel, of Chicora, tailgating before the concert near the stadium.
Traffic crawled nearly everywhere yesterday as PennDOT shut a section of the Parkway East, country music fans packed Heinz Field, and art lovers attended the Three Rivers Arts Festival and the Pittsburgh Symphony…
…From Squirrel Hill to the West End Bridge; from Downtown to the North Side -- the hubbub started bright and early, and the day did not end without a few snags and oddball events.
At 8:35 a.m., a man disregarded signs, barricades, orange cones and barrels and drove his car onto a closed entrance ramp to the Parkway East at the Edgewood-Swissvale exchange. The car stopped when it became lodged in a large hole created by missing concrete.
State police said the car's driver, Andrew Stahl, and a passenger, Joseph Duffy, were taken to UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland. State police said alcohol was a factor in the wreck.
The day posed nightmarish potential after PennDOT announced closing the Parkway East outbound this weekend from the Squirrel Hill Tunnel to the Edgewood-Swissvale exit so crews could work on bridges. The timing could not have been worse for the 50,000 or so Chesney fans expected for the concert.
Close an interstate when 50,000 people are slated to show up for a concert. Brilliant. Say, why don’t you wait until the NFL season starts and plan these construction weekends whenever the Steelers have a home game?
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