page_title: Interstate 376
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 376 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Serhii Chrucky, 2007.
context_page_description: Interstate 376 is a major auxiliary route of the Interstate Highway System in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, located within the Allegheny Plateau. It runs from I-80 near Sharon south and east to a junction with the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Monroeville, after having crossed the Turnpike at an interchange earlier in its route. The route serves Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and its surrounding areas, and is the main access road to Pittsburgh International Airport. Portions of the route are known as the Beaver Valley Expressway, Southern Expressway, and Airport Parkway. Within Allegheny County, the route runs along the majority of the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, known locally as Parkway West and Parkway East. It is currently the ninth-longest auxiliary Interstate route in the system, and second only to I-476 within Pennsylvania.
  I-376 is signed east–west despite running north–south for nearly three-quarters of its length; however, it does run east–west through the majority of Allegheny County. This is because until 2009, the route's western terminus was at Interstate 279 in Downtown Pittsburgh; it was extended west and north to I-80 to give the corridor a single route designation.
context_section_description: The first section of what would eventually become I-376 opened June 5, 1953, from PA 885 (Bates Street) near the Hot Metal Bridge east through the Squirrel Hill Tunnel to US 22 Business (then US 22) at Churchill.  Construction commenced on this stretch on July 25, 1946 near Wilkinsburg. The next section to open, running from PA 60 (Steubenville Pike, then US 22/US 30) near Pittsburgh International Airport east to Saw Mill Run Boulevard (PA 51 and US 19), opened October 15, 1953. At Steubenville Pike, it connected to PA 60—the Airport Parkway—which had been built c. 1950 as a high-speed surface road to provide access to the airport.
  In 1955, the  Baltimore and Ohio Station was demolished to make way for construction of the new freeway.  In late 1956, it opened from the Boulevard of the Allies (then US 22/US 30) near the Birmingham Bridge east to Bates Street, with the eastbound lanes opening September 10 and westbound opening September 29. The other downtown sections opened in segments from January 17, 1958 to 1959, the total cost of the parkway at this time came to $112.107 million (1959 terms). The $6.305 million Fort Pitt Bridge opened June 19, 1959, followed by the $16 million Fort Pitt Tunnel on September 1, 1960, using the West End Bypass (Pennsylvania Route 51) and Carson Street (Pennsylvania Route 837) as detours until the Fort Pitt Tunnel opened. The Parkway East ended in Churchill, with eastbound traffic continuing ahead on the William Penn Highway, until the $11,124,763 extension east to the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Monroeville opened October 27, 1962. The final piece of Parkway West (the part which has never had an Interstate route number), from PA 60 west to the US 22/US 30 split at Imperial, opened in 1964. Early plans for that section would have instead taken it from PA 60 where it splits with PA Route 60 Business northwest to US 30 near Campmeeting Road at Clinton.
  The next section that opened was in 1968 from the present-day exit 2 with PA 18 to where PA 18 intersects with the present-day PA 760 just north of I-80 and the western terminus of I-376.
  Work began on the Beaver County sections of I-376 (in between Chippewa Township and the Airport Parkway) in 1971 and would finish by 1976. The following year, the northern section finished construction, which would leave a gap between New Castle and Chippewa Township for the next 15 years. Until the middle section was completed, in order to continue on the highway, travelers had to use US 422, PA 168, PA 18, PA 251, and PA 51 before returning to the highway. Until that section opened, the present-day exit 12A marked the southern terminus of the northern section of PA 60 as an "END 60" sign was located near the exit.
  In the early to mid 1980s the entire section from downtown to Monroeville was refurbished.
  The next leg of the route opened to PA 108 in 1991 and to PA 51 in Chippewa on November 30, 1992 as the 16.5 mile $260 million "missing link" between two sections of PA 60, when that route's designation was on the highway. The aforementioned "END 60" sign was removed when the first leg of the middle section opened in 1991, and a "No re-entry this exit" sign has sat on the site since, due to exit 12A being an indirect connection to US 422 westbound without a direct re-entry ramp.
  The Southern Expressway, a southern bypass of Pittsburgh International Airport, opened on September 9, 1992 and is the newest portion of I-376.
  The PTC retrofitted E-ZPass lanes on the tolled section of I-376 in 2006 at both the two mainline toll plazas as well as the exits that collect tolls.
  A bridge crossing I-376 from Oakland to Greenfield, the Greenfield Bridge, gained some national notoriety on an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver concerning infrastructure.  The state could not immediately afford to replace the crumbling bridge, so instead a cover was built under the bridge to protect the vehicles on I-376. The Greenfield Bridge was finally demolished in December 2015, and a replacement was built over the following two years, officially opening on October 14, 2017.
caption: I-376 westbound from the Smithfield Street Bridge in Downtown Pittsburgh.
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