Friday, July 31, 2026
All the Conversations Fit to Start Your Morning

The Desk

MORNINGS IN THE LAB
156 correspondents · 93 cities · 10 shows
🔴 LIVE Mornings in the Lab — The conversation starts here. WATCH NOW →
Front PageThe Buzz

The Parkway East is closed. Your commute just got nebby.

SHARE

Your Parkway East detour is gonna make you nebby!

Here's what's wild—yinz know how we always talk about our bridges, n'at? How many there are, how some of 'em look like they're held together with duct tape and prayers? Well, the Parkway East is closed for 25 days, right in the middle of summer, and it's all so crews can replace the Commercial Street Bridge. That's a huge deal for anyone trying to get dahntahn from the east, or really anywhere, because that stretch of 376 is just pure chaos on a normal day. It started this week and goes 'til August 3rd.

The Parkway East closure isn't just a minor inconvenience; it's a full-on traffic nightmare for thousands of Pittsburghers. You're talking about folks from Monroeville, from Squirrel Hill, even those coming up from Westmoreland County, all trying to find new ways into the city. Remember how bad it was whenever they did work on the Fort Pitt Tunnel? This is gonna be like that, but longer. So if your commute usually takes you past Kennywood or through Swissvale, you best be adding some extra time, or maybe even hopping on the bus.

* **The Detour Dilemma:** Drivers are being rerouted onto local roads like Forbes Avenue and Braddock Avenue. So, expect those to be even more packed than usual.

* **Summer Squeeze:** This is happening right when people are trying to hit the Strip District on a Saturday morning, or head to a Pirates game at PNC Park. Good luck finding parking, n'at.

* **Beyond the Burgh:** This closure also impacts regional travel for folks trying to get to destinations east of the city, like heading out to the Laurel Highlands.

Honestly, it just reminds you how much we rely on these old bridges, and how vital it is they get fixed up right. But it also shows you how much grit we got, finding new ways to get where we're going. That's the Burgh, yinz — steel town heart, no matter what.

Kaitlin and the guys break this all down every morning, so catch it live at mornings.live.

SHARE

More from Natalie Kowalczyk

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →