People who live, work or drive in Oakland should keep a bottle of aspirin handy. When the road work starts next week, they'll come to understand the meaning of traffic headache.

		Graphic: Boulevard of the Allies project

Starting Monday, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will begin the two-year, $29 million reconstruction of the Boulevard of the Allies "gateway" that includes eliminating the awkward traffic patterns to and from Forbes and Fifth avenues in South Oakland.

Also on Monday, PennDOT will begin a $3 million rehabilitation of the nearby Birmingham Bridge, shifting traffic to the southbound side and closing the off-ramp to Forbes Avenue until mid-July.

The two projects come at a time when 4.4 miles of the Parkway East are being rehabilitated during off-peak hours and weekends between the Oakland and Edgewood-Swissvale interchanges. The work will totally close the Parkway East over some weekends this summer and route traffic through Oakland as part of the detour.

The Parkway East/I-376 project started last weekend in the outbound direction. It brought Saturday traffic to a crawl reminiscent of weekday afternoon rush hours.

PennDOT and the contractor will hold an informational meeting at 11 a.m. Thursday, at a site to be announced, to explain the Boulevard of the Allies work for this and next year's construction seasons.

The first stage is to focus on building a direct ramp from Fifth Avenue to the boulevard to eliminate unusual zig-zag movement. When completed, drivers will no longer have to turn left onto Craft Avenue and then right onto a contra-flow lane on Forbes.

PennDOT purposely set up this year's work program to minimize traffic problems resulting from the Parkway East project.

"We've tried to coordinate all three [projects]," PennDOT District 11 head construction engineer Jim Foringer said. "There are going to be impacts, and they will be major at times, but we're doing our best to mitigate them."

PennDOT pointed out that the Parkway East work around Oakland will be finished next year when its contractor closes the Boulevard of the Allies to replace an 80-year-old bridge over Forbes that's so badly deteriorated it carries a 9-ton weight limit.

Although so much highway and bridge work is taking place in the same vicinity, "we're going to be delivering some very nice projects to the public," Mr. Foringer said.

The Birmingham Bridge project falls under a special preservation program designed to address problems early rather than waiting until they become severe and significantly more costly to correct.

During the first phase, one lane of traffic will be maintained in each direction on the southbound side. While the Forbes Avenue off-ramp is closed, motorists will be detoured on a loop involving left turns onto Fifth, Moultrie and Forbes.

PennDOT has been experiencing trouble for some time with an expansion dam on the six-lane bridge over the Monongahela River that connects the South Side and South Oakland. That expansion dam will be replaced.

Other work will include deck and steel repairs and spot painting of rust. The project is to be completed in November.

For the second straight week, Parkway East work is to take place in the outbound direction, restricting traffic from 8 p.m. Friday through 6 a.m. Monday -- at the latest -- from the Bates Street/Oakland interchange toward the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. Last weekend, the contractor finished early and reopened all lanes Sunday afternoon.