PITTSBURGH — A guardrail destroyed more than a year ago in a Pittsburgh neighborhood still has not been replaced, and it’s a huge safety concern for the people who live in the area.
Community members reached out to 11 Investigates after their calls for help went unanswered.
“They just fly around this corner and without these cones here I’m afraid they’re just going to keep on going straight,” Ed Korshlak said.
Korshlak set up the cones because he’s concerned that if a car goes straight, it will hit his home at the bottom of a steep hill in Carrick.
“People sometimes come flying down there. In the winter time, they slide down there, so we do need a guardrail,” he said.
This worry is new. There used to be a heavy-duty metal guardrail, but in August 2023, someone driving a stolen car took it out. The city replaced it, but then a month later a driver under the influence crashed into it.
Korshlak reached out to the city again after the second crash.
“They didn’t believe me at first,” he said. “They thought, they says ‘oh we already repaired that guardrail,’ but finally I kept on calling them, calling them and calling them. They came out and looked at it and said ‘yeah’ and they removed that guardrail.”
The city told Korshlak that the guardrail cant be replaced until crews raised the nearby manhole cover. That took nearly a year.
And without the guardrail or even temporary barricades, there have been some pretty close calls.
“I thought oh no, Ed, he’s going to hit the garage, he’s going to hit the garage, and he turned and went in back of that little tree and I thought he was going to hit that tree, and then he went,” Pauline Korshlak said.
The sewer work wrapped up several months ago and Ed reached out to the city again but never heard back.
“Nobody answers the phone, a recording comes on, and it’s full, and I can’t even leave a voice mail,” he said.
Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure says they’re aware and are evaluating it.
Director Kim Lucas if there was an imminent risk, the department would “be moving on getting a guide rail out there.” But, because of previous replacements, the department wants to make sure the right countermeasures are in place.
Lucas says the department is also looking at adding more signage in the area and lowering the speed limit.
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