Even before a landslide closed McArdle Roadway from the Liberty Bridge to Mount Washington, residents and visitors to the hilltop neighborhood were dealing with other lingering obstacles.

A bridge project that closed the lower section of McArdle is months behind schedule and won't be completed until midsummer.

Meanwhile, the city is trying to expedite construction of a retaining wall on Wyoming Street, where failure of an old wall closed off access to Grandview Avenue from East Sycamore Street, another main route to the neighborhood.

Patrick Hassett, assistant public works director for transportation and engineering, said the $7 million lower McArdle bridge rehabilitation project has been interrupted by traffic on the railroad line that passes underneath it. When the work started last January, the city had hoped to complete it by the end of the year.

"They're a little busier than we thought they would be," he said of Norfolk Southern Railway, which must give the contractor permission to encroach on its right of way. "There is more traffic out there than we'd anticipated."

Five freight trains rumbled through the construction area in a one-hour span this week as construction crews worked on a pier.

Norfolk Southern public relations manager Dave Pidgeon said the company operates about 30 trains per day under the bridge. "Construction crews have to coordinate their work around those trains. Safety is the top priority," he said.

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McArdle Roadway

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Mr. Hassett said most of the work has been halted for winter and that major construction will resume in the spring. The delay likely will add to the project cost, but he did not have an estimate.

The bridge work has closed McArdle to all but local traffic from Arlington Avenue to South Ninth Street, shutting a key link between the Liberty Bridge and South Side and adding to congestion along East Carson Street, particularly at its intersection with Arlington.

"We're used to it," said Betty Kripp, a resident of Windom Street, which runs off lower McArdle. When she moved there, the other bridge on lower McArdle was closed for repairs.

"We're just so glad they're fixing it," said Ms. Kripp, a retired teacher. She said residents had worried that the decaying bridge, built in 1933 and considered one of the worst in the region, would be closed indefinitely.

Lisa Hofmann of Windom Hill Place said her five-minute commute to her job at the Pittsburgh Technology Center has grown to 20 minutes because of the detour and heavier traffic on East Carson.

"There are construction materials and bulldozers and nobody's using them," she said. "No one informs us. That part is frustrating."

Doug Bradley, a resident of East Sycamore, was so annoyed by the Wyoming Street closure that he prepared a full-color flier objecting to the barricade and lack of a posted detour.

"Pittsburgh's #1 Tourist Attraction," it says, adding "Whoops ... it's closed."

"One block from their destination, visitors traveling by car to Grandview Avenue via East Sycamore St. find a Road Closed sign. Period. No detour instructions, no 'We're sorry for the inconvenience, good luck,' no 'Come back to see us sometime,' " says the flier, which he sent to the local news media.

Mr. Hassett said the city is in preliminary design of a new wall and hopes to complete the work by late March. "We're trying to move it along," he said.

"I understand the city has budget problems and the city has many, many projects going on," Mr. Bradley said in an interview. "It's just ugly ... to me it just presents a bad impression of the city to out-of-town visitors."

Arriving at the barricade, drivers can't make the right turn onto Wyoming to reach Grandview and cannot go straight ahead because Sycamore becomes one way in the wrong direction. They must turn left at Wyoming, ascend a steep cobblestone street and try to wend their way back to Grandview on a street layout that isn't particularly friendly to strangers.

With two of the four principal access routes to the neighborhood blocked, "you have to know what you're doing to get on or off that mountain now," Mr. Bradley said.