As part of the rededication, American flags have been added on both sides of the boulevard as it elevates toward the Liberty Bridge ramp and thirty temporary banners celebrating the Allies of World War I have been affixed, following the road to its end.

The proposed route, carved out of the Bluff above the Monongahela River, would connect the same areas over a distance about 1 mile (1.6 km) shorter.

[4] The boulevard itself was built on an elevated viaduct beginning at Second Avenue and Grant Street and climbing over the Panhandle Route tracks onto the Bluff, where the roadway then followed the cliff edge eastward to Oakland.

[5] The first section of the boulevard from Downtown to the intersection with Forbes Avenue at the edge of West Oakland opened on October 2, 1922, and was formally dedicated a month later on Armistice Day.

[14] With the completion of the Penn-Lincoln Parkway East in the late 1950s, US 22 and US 30 were moved off the Boulevard, and PA 885 was extended west a short distance to the interchange near the Birmingham Bridge.

The construction of I-579 in the early 1960s cut the path of westbound Boulevard traffic into downtown;[15] eventually the PA 885 designation was continued west to this interchange.