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LurkersWillLurk t1_jbkal5l wrote

PennDOT is fundamentally incapable of doing anything other than blowing billions of dollars on highway expansions that ultimately don’t reduce congestion

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j428h t1_jbkdk45 wrote

The money is either for them, or PSP.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jbkmk5o wrote

It takes trucks out of lewisburg shamokin and selinsgrove. It’s a good idea in theory but it became too expensive. The issue is it comes at the expense of underfunding major city public transit. Building rural highways is heroin to some people; they get addicted and can’t say no to projects no matter the cost. It must be easier to enrich your campaign donors building rural highways than inner city public transit not to mention inner cities are gerrymandered out of power and the state senate design is biased toward rural areas

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Steelplate7 t1_jblg6su wrote

I work in Selinsgrove and live in Middleburg. This needs to be done. Anyone who has navigated the “golden strip” of 11/15 knows how bad the traffic sucks and most of it is thru traffic.

It will be a huge economic boon to the local economy to have traffic that actually WANT to be in the area instead of trying to get where they’re going.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jblln1r wrote

I used to drive the new interstate 99 portion of 15 from NY to Williamsport and then down to Harrisburg. This new project goes nicely with that

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Jsingles589 t1_jbmimr8 wrote

I live in selinsgrove, and yes, this project solves a lot of annoying truck traffic going through shamokin dam.

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imamunster123 t1_jboz8r7 wrote

Grew up literally one street off the strip in Hummel's Wharf, can confirm. This has been needed for a long, long time.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbonjco wrote

Nobody lives in the areas served by this proposed freeway. Why piss away over a billion dollars to put a highway from nowhere to nowhere in?
 
According to Google Maps it takes sixteen minutes to drive from Selinsgrove to Middleburg. How much shorter a commute are you looking for here?

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Steelplate7 t1_jbqfqat wrote

Tell you what…look at a fucking map instead of worry about where I live/work.

I was just using my location to give a general idea of how familiar I am with the situation.

There is a real issue with thru traffic that makes it damn near impossible to navigate that strip.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbtv8bw wrote

> Tell you what…look at a fucking map instead of worry about where I live/work.

 
You told us where you live and work. I checked a map. Driving from A to B takes sixteen minutes.

 
> There is a real issue with thru traffic that makes it damn near impossible to navigate that strip.

 

Apparently not, since people do it every day.

 
We don't need to piss away a billion dollars on a highway from nowhere to nowhere so you can get home four minutes earlier.

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Steelplate7 t1_jbulen4 wrote

You still don’t get it. The issue is NOT me getting to and from work. It is doing anything else in our area…which goes way beyond me.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbus1r2 wrote

I have family in the area and drive on 11&15 whenever I'm out there. It isn't congested in any sense of the meaning unless you're a country bumpkin who doesn't understand what real traffic looks like.

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Steelplate7 t1_jbulhh5 wrote

No…let’s spend multiple billions of dollars so you can have 10 more buses. Fuck off…

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jburz7x wrote

Ten new buses would cost about $7 million and move more people in any given year than your billion dollar highway from nowhere, to nowhere.

 
There are 80-100K people living in the entire area this highway would service. There are more people than that living within a twelve mile radius of me.
 
$1b so a few bumpkins can get home a couple minutes earlier from work is an insane amount of waste.

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Jsingles589 t1_jbmj7qp wrote

I live in Selinsgrove and my brother in law is a structural engineer who specializes in bridges and roads.

The article correctly explains that this cost increase has relates to material costs and inflation.

Not sure why you’re attacking PennDOT for that…

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Swimming-Figure-8635 t1_jbmokvz wrote

Because it's a boondoggle that should have never been built. Can you imagine the absolute insanity in red PA if you proposed spending $1 billion on SEPTA?

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Jsingles589 t1_jbms4a2 wrote

I don't agree with you.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jboop1t wrote

If PennDOT were proposing to give SEPTA or PRT > $1b for expansion the middle of the state would have a total shitfit.

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Super_C_Complex t1_jbq3cen wrote

Highway expansions never reduce congestion.

There will always be more cars than roads.

What we need is comprehensive mass transit

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbkpn61 wrote

These highway projects are planned out over the course of decades. The Mon-Fayette Expressway in Allegheny County was planned when the Mon Valley was heavily populated and had a lot of high volume employers. By the time it was built population patterns in the county had changed dramatically.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jbllbsd wrote

The cvst is a better investment. 15 miles for $1billion and the first half already has 3000 trucks a day and it’s a growing area with many distribution centers and the 81 is ten times more congested. The mon fayette should go down as one of the dumbest highways ever constructed. If they had started building it at the monroville end first, it would have been easier to cancel or indefinitely delay the rural segments but those fuckers screwed us and built the most useless parts first. I wonder what the total cost for all segments of the mon fayette costs inflation adjusted.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbooz7j wrote

> The cvst is a better investment. 15 miles for $1billion

 
That may be a "better" investment, that does not mean it's a good investment. Fewer people live in the area that would be served by this abortion of a project than live in the Mon Fayette service area.

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jbouugo wrote

the csvt cooridor is still a busy road especially for trucks. Having driven both the csvt and mon fayette I feel the csvt is more beneficial due to the truck congestion but that’s just anecdotal. The csvt isn’t feasible to be served by public transit.

The mon fayette is going to cost $5billion or more by time it’s finished while some of the mon fayette should be transit oriented like the old inter urban to California, PA.and a busway to monroeville

I’m not saying I like either project but it is interesting to compare them. I’m going to do some more reading. I wouldn’t really care about them if they weren’t built at the expense of city transit

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No-Setting9690 t1_jbkiijd wrote

Im from Reading area, I'd be happy to just have an actual highway in all directions. 222 is horrible going north.

They can send that money this way ha

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbkpreu wrote

Building more lanes and more roads will never solve traffic problems. The only thing that does is getting cars off the road.

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Chemical_Miracle_0 t1_jbl6zbp wrote

To get that you need to restrict and reduce single family zoning and focus on building more densely. You can’t have one without the other.

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No-Setting9690 t1_jbkvrzk wrote

I'm all for that. Loved it during pandemic, was like a private highway.

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Blexcr0id t1_jbnpmks wrote

Dirty hippie public transit... In murica, cars = freedom!

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ronreadingpa t1_jbok1tt wrote

More lanes often do help. When they completed the RT 222 conversion to a 4-lane limited access highway back around 2007 (delayed about 40 years), getting to Lancaster County from Reading area became much easier and faster. Also, traffic on surrounding back roads decreased. Even 15+ years later, it's still better than before.

Some don't like cars and that's fine, but more roads and lanes, on the whole, do help. Anyone doubting that should look at how long it used to take to drive across Pennsylvania before the PA turnpike and other highways, such as I-80, were built.

I remember the days before the Blue Route was built (started in the 60s and finally opened around 1990). Getting to the Philadelphia airport was a nightmare. Some will point out the nasty traffic jams on there as a proof that more highways / lanes don't help. However, the main reason for the jams around milepost 9 is due to be only 2 lanes each way instead of 3 lanes as originally proposed. Traffic on the 3-lane northern section generally moves well.

Not going to change your mind, but pointing this out for others. Many PA residents want and demand more highways. Not only that, many are willing to pay extra tolls (begrudgingly) if that's what it takes to get them built. Many people value their time and want flexibility in travel. Difficult to take camping gear or lumber on the bus. Renting a car sounds good, but is very expensive and not guaranteed (may not get a car or isn't the type expected), but I digress.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jbomoh4 wrote

> More lanes often do help.

 
No, they don't.
https://www.planetizen.com/definition/induced-demand

 
Read this book:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865477506/suburbannation
 
In a nutshell, the problem is that our road network works on a trunk-and-feeder system. You've got a great many surface feeder streets and roads feeding into a limited number of high speed trunk highways. Adding more lanes to a freeway will not work as long as the feeder lanes exceed the trunk lanes.
 
https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/final-reports/10-12-2015-ncst_brief_inducedtravel_cs6_v3.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html

 
California has been adding lanes to LA-area freeways for decades at this point and it's only made traffic worse.

 
> Not going to change your mind, but pointing this out for others. Many PA residents want and demand more highways.

 
Many PA residents don't know what they actually want. What they actually want is to not spend so much time in their cars, because driving is a shitty boring chore. Adding lanes won't do that for them.

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ronreadingpa t1_jboq5ol wrote

Can't speak for California. In PA more roads and lanes often do help. I know from personal experience.

Induced demand is an issue, but not building new roads / adding lanes isn't the answer either. It needs to be a combination of better road infrastructure and other transportation options along with coordinating zoning across municipalities.

In my view, among the most promising is on-demand public transit. Instead of full-size buses running on a fixed routes, using a mix of vehicles from vans to full-size buses instead with flexible routes. Closest analogy would be Uber Pool. If done right, many would use it.

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69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jboqkcg wrote

> Can't speak for California. In PA more roads and lanes often do help.

 
Pennsylvania does not exist on a fundamentally different plane of existence than California, so no they don't. As any trip through the freeways in Philly will show you.
 
> but not building new roads / adding lanes isn't the answer either.

 
The answer is to remove vehicles from the road. That is the only way to alleviate traffic. Unfortunately, most Americans cannot imagine a life that doesn't involve driving alone an average of 40 miles a day.
 
> In my view, among the most promising is on-demand public transit. Instead of full-size buses running on a fixed routes, using a mix of vehicles from vans to full-size buses instead with flexible routes. Closest analogy would be Uber Pool. If done right, many would use it.

 
Congratulations, you just reinvented the jitney.

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mattcrwi t1_jbkn58j wrote

They spent millions planning the upgrades to 422 and i676 off/on ramps around Reading and then cancelled the project a few years ago. Reading ain't getting any money unfortnately. Those ramps are dangerously small too.

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No-Setting9690 t1_jbkvpx1 wrote

2027 baby. The current plan is from penn st bridge to mt penn. Widen all highways, change bridges to modern butterfly ramps, fix i176 onto 422 merges. Can't wait.

It's the northbound on 222 that sucks ass. They haven't even paved it in decades. From interchange at 73, all the way to kutztown, it needs to at least be widened to 2 lanes. WTF do we still have a single lane part on 222 connecting Reading and Allentown.

Edit: Hit enter early

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mattcrwi t1_jblnpgn wrote

I thought they cancelled that project but I guess they just postponed it around covid. That's good to hear. We'll have some safer roads in my lifetime lol

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whomp1970 t1_jc2efkf wrote

> upgrades to 422 and i676 off/on ramps around Reading

You mean I-176, right?

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ronreadingpa t1_jbom9u2 wrote

One can dream. About the best we'll get is roundabouts. Lots of them. Oh, and the speed limit will be posted artificially low (ie. 45 instead of 55) like is on the quasi-limited access bypass they built about a decade ago south of Allentown. It's better than before, but it's 2nd rate compared to what many other places have.

Some in Berks like that it's not well connected to the north. They don't want more development and like Berks County the way it is; prefer it stay a backwater. Can't totally fault that sentiment either.

It's interesting how fast similar projects get done down in Chester County. What is a 6 month project there takes 2-3 years in Berks. Oh, they're resuming the ongoing milling and repaving work Rt 222 around the Mall in a couple of weeks. Maybe they'll finish this year, but not so sure.

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No-Setting9690 t1_jbovg26 wrote

Berks likes to set the bar for long term. Only took 45 years to finish road to nowhere.

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Tarcanus t1_jblac6t wrote

I hope it's worthwhile at least. I'd love to bypass the slowdown that is the strip going through Shamokin Dam/Northumberland when heading north.

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Grumpicake t1_jbl37sv wrote

Here’s hoping for $2B! /s

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ktxhopem3276 t1_jbm9nkm wrote

These long duration projects always go up in cost due to inflation. It’s really not a big deal except if you want to write hyperbolic headline like this article

> Unit prices were established at the time of bidding but the contract does include provisions for adjustments associated with standard price indexes such as diesel fuel, asphalt, and steel

Some projects have major unexpected obstacles like the route interstate 99 when they realized they exposed acidic rock and had to spend $100 million in remediation

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_SundaeDriver t1_jbmhtxz wrote

I sense a toll increase in the near future

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