In the past months, PennDOT and construction crews have been working on roads surrounding the community, continuing construction plans or amending road concerns.

Starting on Feb. 14, construction on Freedom Crider Road in New Sewickley began. This construction closes the road to traffic between Route 989 and Freedom-Lovi road. This work will be ongoing until Aug. 1, when it will open up to the public again. People who own property on the road with still have travel access to their houses.

Drivers who wish to use Freedom Crider Road are detoured from Lovi Road to Route 989.

There are currently four students from FASD that live on the closed part of Freedom Crider Road. Buses are not able to ride on the stretch to their houses due to the closure. Because of this, PennDOT has agreed to reimburse the school to add a van to the bus routes before and after school.

This construction is part of the Freedom Road Upgrade project, which costs $80 million. The entire project started two years ago, and it includes a realignment and roadway construction of a 3.5-mile stretch of Crow’s Run and Freedom roads from Route 65 in Conway to Park Quarry Road in New Sewickley Township.

According to the PennDOT website, these changes will “enhance safety and address substandard roadway features.” The project includes bridge and structure replacement, utility relocation and other construction activities.

On Feb. 26, PennDOT created a four-way stop at the intersection of Lovi Road and Route 989. Previously, there were only stop signs on Lovi Road. According to PennDOT, because of the detour created by the closing of Freedom Crider Road, there is now an increase in traffic going from Lovi Road to Route 989. To remedy this, they added two stop signs on Route 989 by the Little Super.

Because of the sudden switch by adding stop signs, some cars still continue to drive through the intersection.

. “I definitely think that anyone that doesn’t know about the change could end up driving through the signs, but I hope it would be a one-time thing,” senior Haley Velemirovich said. “Where Route 989 and Freedom Crider meet up at the other four-way stop signs further down the road, there is a large sign that warns drivers of the new traffic patterns ahead.”

This isn’t the only major change happening on Lovi Road in the coming months. Because of the winter weather and constant traffic, some sections of the road have a number of potholes and dips that will be repaved.

PennDOT plans to pave part of Freedom Crider Road to Tri-County Drive. Penn Energy will pave a portion of pavement from Blackwoods Road to Knob Vue Road.

“PennDot has a lot of work to do still, but they have made enough repairs where it hasn’t been affecting my drive anymore,” Mr. Brad Baldwin said. Baldwin drives to work on Lovi Road every day due to the closing of Freedom Crider.

According to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, as of Feb. 18, Pittsburgh received 3,769 pothole complaints in six weeks. That’s more than three times the number of complaints from this time last year.

Because of the weather variations in the past few months, PennDOT can’t permanently repair potholes in the road. In order to fix one, they need to use hot material, which isn’t available from plants until April. When working to fix them during colder months, the crews use cold patches as a temporary repair.

“The only alternative [to fix potholes without hot materials] we have is cold patch. It only works so well. We’ll cold patch one area and then the next day the asphalt breaks right next to it,” Angelo Pampena, assistant district executive for maintenance for Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties, said in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

According to PennDOT’s website, drivers can submit claims of damage to their vehicle from a pothole, but PennDOT is required to deny these claims unless there are certain circumstances, like bodily harm, present.

PennDOT encourages those who have road or pothole concerns to contact 1-800-349-7623.