Interstate 70 reopens

PennDOT officials were assessing how to restore traffic flow to normal Wednesday because of a retaining wall on a bridge that started to collapse a day earlier under the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 in Rostraver.

Our thing right now is coming up with a plan to get it stabilized and resume with the rest of the project, PennDOT spokeswoman Valerie Petersen said.

We don't have any estimate on how long it's going to take, she said.

Officials shut down the interstate Tuesday afternoon after workers discovered the retaining wall between exits 46 and 43 was moving. Beech Construction Inc. of Carnegie is replacing the bridge, which spans Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad tracks, Petersen said.

Traffic traveled over that section of bridge earlier Tuesday, Petersen said.

As they were working on it, (the retaining wall) kind of started to move, Petersen said. We needed to get traffic off the road.

Detours were set up, first manned by state police and others. The changes in traffic flow caused confusion and congestion, especially in the area of nearby Route 201.

There was a detour put in place. I don't know about signs, but we had people there moving people through, Petersen said.

Claire Holbrook, owner of Exxon 70 along Route 201 (Rostraver Road), watched traffic slow to a crawl in front of her business Tuesday evening.

It seemed like it was moving, but slowly. It was bumper-to-bumper. I think I did have some people (motorists) come in here. I know when it's bumper-to-bumper like that, sometimes people don't want to get out of line, Holbrook said.

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Interstate 70 reopens