It’s a wrap-up: PennDOT construction season overcomes a shortage of workers, lack of materials and inflation 

In a normal year, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation might award bids on 50 to 75 projects in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties and sit back while contractors work their magic on several hundred millions of dollars in road and bridge projects.

There’s always oversight from the department, and each project has its challenges, but usually they are relatively minor and work proceeds to conclusion.

But 2022 was anything but a normal year, District 11 Executive Cheryl Moon-Sirianni said in a wrap-up of the construction season with local media last week.

This year, the department and contractors were in constant contact as they dealt with a series of problems that included a shortage of workers, lack of construction materials and inflation driving up the cost of projects by 15% to 20%.

The issues led to the rearrangement of work schedules, substitution of materials and future work that has to be postponed due to the lack of funds.

Because of the volume of work in the district, the department tries to schedule as much work as it can for overnight hours to minimize the inconvenience of motorists. This year, with contractors having difficulty maintaining staff, some crew members balked at working in the middle of the night, particularly drivers of concrete trucks, and some left for other work.

As a result, contractors got permission to shift some work to daylight and rearrange the order in which tasks were completed to keep a project moving.

“Our industry isn’t necessarily the most attractive when we ask people to work nights and weekends,” said Jason Zang, assistant executive for construction. “We don’t have a lot of choice there if we want to try to impact motorists as little as possible.

“We really need to thank those workers who have been there each and every night and weekend. It’s been a challenge to meet our needs.”

Supply-chain problems also have created havoc in construction schedules. Shortages of road paint and fabricated steel have left many projects finished except for lane and intersection markings and poles for utilities and traffic lights.

In some instances, Moon-Sirianni said, contractors have gotten permission to change specifications and substitute materials when a product has been unavailable for long periods of time.

When materials are available, the cost has become a major concern. Aware that inflation has increased costs by 15% to 20%, the department adjusted many of its projections for the cost of projects, but Moon-Sirianni said that will mean other projects don’t move forward in future years.

“What is going to happen is the number of projects that are going to move up is going to be reduced,” she said. “We can’t say exactly which projects yet, but some are going to have to wait.”

Overall, the department awarded bids for 56 new projects across three counties this year and spent a total of $317 million on new and continuing projects in the three-county region. That included 335 miles of paving, replacing or improving 54 bridges and correcting 37 landslides.

Among the major projects the department finished were drain improvement work on Ravine Street in Sharpsburg, an extensive pedestrian improvement project and repaving on East Carson Street in Pittsburgh’s South Side, and installation of a roundabout on McLaughlin Run Road in Upper St. Clair.

Route 28 around the Highland Park Bridge remains a major focal point as the department continues projects that will result in two continuous lanes of traffic from Pittsburgh’s North Side to Kittanning. Crews finished a paving project approaching the bridge, but five bridge ramps will be closed at various times in the next year, and paving work continues around the RIDC park through next season.

Work also will continue next year on two projects on Interstate 79, rehabilitation of the Neville Island Bridge, and resurfacing and bridge deck replacement on a series of bridges to the north in Ohio Township.