Commuters Struggle To Find Parking Spots Due To North Shore Garage Construction

NORTH SHORE (KDKA) -- Call it the pain of progress. Commuter parking on Pittsburgh's North Shore has become progressively more difficult over the last month.

It's a daily frustration lately on the North Shore.

"There's nowhere, nowhere to park," Laurie Allard of Donora said. Allard said she tried five different lots and still couldn't find a place to park.

"At the moment, parking on the North Shore is a bit of a premium," Ralph Reetz of Alco Parking said.

And that would be your official understatement of the day. The reason? A growing hole in Gold Lot 1.

"The construction for the garage, we lost 500 spaces," Reetz said. "When it's done in May of 2017, there will be a thousand spaces to replace the 500 we lost."

But that light is way down the tunnel, and today's reality is 500 daily parkers scrambling to find another spot.

"Everything fills earlier now," Reetz said.

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ACM Parking says its lot across from the Carnegie Science Center goes to lease only shortly after 7:30 each morning, a condition that might improve when school resumes and Science Center demand lessens.

As for Alco's lots and the garage on the east side of Heinz Field...

"If you're after 8 a.m., chances are good that those lots are full," Reetz said.

Reetz says later arrivers might try Lot 5A next to the General Robinson Parking Garage, or the former Allegheny Center garage. The fact is, he says, there simply aren't enough spaces for the displaced daily parkers, at least not at the moment.

So he suggests the lot at 15th and Smallman in the Strip District for $7 a day.

"There is a free shuttle over there that runs the morning and afternoon," Reetz said. "It runs from 15th and Smallman and goes up to Grant Street near 7th."

All that aside, it only gets tougher as this week goes on. On Thursday, the Pirates have a day game, so as a result, it's leases only, and for daily commuters on Friday, once again, this time it's the Steelers with a game at Heinz Field, so it's leases only.

After that, we just get back to it being tough to park after 8 in the morning.