For the past year, anyone who has driven in the business district of Waynesburg has seen construction on the city’s main streets and intersectionsWhile the many one-lane roads and complete detours have been a slight inconvenience, the major construction project is coming to a close for the betterment of the borough. 

The Waynesburg Betterment Project began in September of 2023 to fill potholes, expand intersections and improve roadway safety for all drivers coming through the city

“We’re about 65-70 percent finished [with the project],” Project Manager Richard Diamond said. “We’ve still got about a million dollars in concrete to do yet and about a million and a half in asphalt paving to do. We’ve paid out about 6 million dollars up to now and by the end of next week we’ll probably have about 7.5 million paid out to the contractors.”

For context, the entire project’s budget at the outset was roughly $11.8 million according to penndot.pa.gov. 

The new concrete and asphalt being laid down on the roads and the slight expanding of intersections are meant to allow more room for large oil and gas trucks to make turns and drive on stronger roads less susceptible to potholes.

“When you have a high traffic area like these intersections, all the intersections were getting beaten down by these trucks,” Assistant Construction Engineer Darian Glitz said. “So we wanted to replace those existing concrete or asphalt, whatever was there with really good, strong concrete, deep concrete. Hopefully that will take away all the rutting from these heavy trucks.”

According to Diamond, the main work left to do for this project will be done on Morgan Street, which will completely restrict access to the road.

“All of September we will have most of Morgan Street shut down for a total rebuild,” Diamond said. “We’re rebuilding Morgan and we’ve rebuilt Richhill Street already. By the time we get done with Morgan at the end of September, we will have all the concrete work done, then we’ll just have paving to finish up.”

Aside from truck drivers who constantly have routes going through these Waynesburg intersections, a main group of benefactors of this project, once it is done, will be the businesses of Waynesburg. 

“I’d like to think that when people can drive a smoother road towards your business instead of bumping their way through intersections, it makes for a more pleasant travel time to get to that business,” Glitz said. “These intersections were pretty roughed up, now they’ll be smoother, anytime you have fresh asphalt and fresh paint it looks cleaner and new, so I think the aesthetics will be very pleasing, and then the chicanes that were added to this project as a traffic calming method will keep the traffic at 25 miles an hour, so the public should feel safer.”

The final stages of the project are expected to take place within the final weeks of October into the early weeks of November of this year, which means by Thanksgiving, all those who live or travel through Waynesburg may get to see and experience the positive impacts of the Waynesburg Betterment Project.