A Lancaster city sidewalk — or, more specifically, the lack of one — has raised concerns for downtown pedestrians. The sidewalk location is 215 N. Queen St., site of the former Empire TV & Appliance building. The building's facade collapsed in April 2010 when workers were exc......

  When a cardboard box fell off the trailer ahead, Roy Shipman's car was upon it so fast he didn't have time to be scared. "I only had time to make one little swerve," recalled Shipman of the accident two months ago on Interstate 95 in South Carolina. But he couldn't avoid ......

When the state Department of Transportation began work on a pair of bridges earlier this month on Route 272, an electronic message board was placed along the roadway near the intersection with Route 322 in Ephrata. A helpful message advises northbound motorists to expect delays on Route 2......

Perseverance pays off. Two weeks ago, The Watchdog reported problems Grandview Heights residents had with two overstuffed Planet Aid donation bins at Fountain and New Holland avenues. At that time, residents had made numerous contacts with Planet Aid, which finally dispatched a driver t......

A regular reader of Lancaster Lookout is responsible for bringing attention to a problem the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation says it will fix. The reader drives South Duke Street and the new bridge across the Conestoga River. Every time it rains a large puddle appears on the southe......

The New Year's Day column about Amtrak's tree-trimming program in Mount Joy touched a few nerves. A resident of South Barbara Street wrote in an email, "My concern is now, with the trees gone, it is a dangerous situation for the kids in the neighborhood. ... The trees were a barrier for the ......

Clarification Nov. 8, 2011 — An item that appears in the story below regarding the wearing of blaze orange requires a clarification. State regulations stipulate that anyone who is on state game lands between Nov. 15 ......

On Saturday, the state Department of Transportation's paving deadline, the sun shone brightly on Lancaster County. Not so the day before, or on many other days since the start of the asphalt paving season April 1. In fact, the county has received a third more rain than normal so f......

Eastbound Route 30 traffic on the Wrights Ferry Bridge over the Susquehanna River is reduced to one lane this week as freshly poured concrete hardens and bearings are replaced. The single-lane restriction will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily through Thursday, state Transportation Departme......

  Construction at Oregon Pike and Butler Avenue, across from Lancaster Shopping Center, has resumed and is expected to end within the month, officials said. Integrity Bank, whose newly constructed branch sits on the former site of the Eat'n Park restaurant, has been working with......

It's a wasted day if you don't learn something. The Watchdog was educated about an organization called Grave Concern while checking into a report of a damaged wall surrounding an old cemetery on the north side of Route 23 (Marietta Pike), between the village of Silver Springs and Farmdale......

If you spend a lot of time driving on U.S. Route 30 and state Route 283 in Lancaster County you might want to smile, because you could be on camera. A reader said he saw more cameras installed on those roads and wondered what was going on. According to PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny,......

  Slowed by a stagnant economy for a few years, plans for a major development on the farm across from Long's Park are back on the drawing board. But this time they're drawn differently. Earlier this month, High Real Estate Group LLC submitted a request to the Manheim Townsh......

El puente de la calle South Duke sobre el Río Conestoga está previsto  a cerrar para reparaciones dentro de las próximas semanas. El Departamento de Transporte del estado abrió las ofertas para el proyecto de diseño y construcción del puente,......

The South Duke Street bridge over the Conestoga River is scheduled to close for repairs within the next few weeks. The state Department of Transportation opened bids in May 2010 for the design-and-build project to replace the superstructure of the aging bridge. PennDOT spokesman Greg Penn......

Ryan Kreider said Sunday that he had heard that PennDOT planned to work on the Octoraro Creek bridge, but that was just a proposal being discussed. And he said he expected that when the state Department of Transportation got around to doing the work, it would keep open the bridge that car......

The Martic Township supervisors voted unanimously on April 4 to accept PennDOT's draft proposal to allow an extension of the contract to realign the temporary crossover road connecting Route 324 and Red Hill Road near a defunct railroad bridge. The township is in violation of a Pennsylvania ......

Richard Livesey watched two horses fall as they tried to pull their buggies through a depressed section of Furniss Road in front of his house last week. A neighbor across the highway contacted PennDOT. A road crew spread 2 or 3 inches of cold patch onto the deflated surface. "They didn'......

Since 1989, motorists have been avoiding the Route 324 tunnel under the Enola Low-Grade Line in Martic Township by driving on a makeshift road that crosses over the abandoned rail line. Tractor-trailers, large farm machines and firetrucks can't fit through the 12-foot-high underpass, and ......

A patron of the new Manheim Township Public Library reports traffic gets stacked up at a short green light at Granite Run Drive and Fruitville Pike, making it difficult for drivers who want to turn left to head south on the pike. "At busy times," the patron said, "the first car is lucky to g......

Warmer temperatures might be a welcome relief for those weary of winter, but they don't do local roads any favors. Workers for contractor J.D. Eckman Inc., spent Monday and Tuesday repairing sections of North Prince Street in Lancaster city, where potholes have appeared in recent weeks....

A Christiana woman was taken to the hospital after her sport utility vehicle overturned on an icy road in Bart Township Monday morning, police reported. Kandace E. Miller, 32, was driving north in the 1200 block of Georgetown Road at 6:51 a.m. when she hit a patch of ice and lost control ......

The covered bridge on Hunsecker Road once again is open to traffic. The 37-year-old span, which bridges the gap over the Conestoga River between Upper Leacock and Manheim townships, was closed Sept. 16 after a one-car crash in its interior damaged weight-bearing beams. Motorists f......

Our Wednesday morning weather will hinge on a few degrees. Freezing rain is expected to glaze the county overnight and continue Wednesday morning, likely making for a treacherous, white-knuckle start for those headed out on roads and sidewalks early Wednesday. "We have a threat of......

Wednesday night's wet, heavy snow blanketed the county — including some traffic lights. Blame the wind, said Charlotte Katzenmoyer, Lancaster city's director of public works. But, she said, don't blame the light-emitting diode traffic lights. "I think people just wan......

Police are investigating whether the four Manheim teenagers killed in a crash Sunday were making a video of their car speeding over a dip in the road. South Londonderry Township police will be filing search warrants for the cell phones of the occupants of the car, as well as the cell phon......

One person was killed and two others were injured in a one-vehicle crash Thursday in East Hempfield Township, police said, bringing to 58 the number of traffic fatalities in Lancaster County this year. Nineteen of those 58 people were riding motorcycles or were passengers on them, accordi......

At 9:30 a.m. Monday, a state Department of Transportation crew started to paint white lines on Route 222, just north of the Route 30 exit. At 9:31 a.m., the lines were messed up. As in: tracked on, swept through and generally just smeared all over parts of the busy north-south hig......

In PennDOT's world, Band-Aids are made of steel. Tuesday morning, a state Department of Transportation maintenance crew put a steel plate over a gaping expansion joint on the south side of the Lititz Pike bridge. It was the second time in a week they had been there. Last Wednesday, a......

On the walkway of the Lititz Pike bridge is a twisted ankle waiting to happen. Amid the litter and broken glass, a serving-platter-sized hole has opened in the crumbling concrete. But, even before an ankle is twisted, official fingers are getting a workout. The four-lane r......

And now a word from PennDOT to motorists traveling on Route 222: Don't worry, it's not done.Motorists on the state highway might think the repaving project was completed, an alarming thought because the new surface is rattling their cars.Greg Penny, spokesman for the state T......

After a hard rain, Ed Jorgensen gets dead birds washing up into his yard. "Hundreds of cigarette butts, too," said Jorgensen, who lives along the 200 block of East Main Street in Brownstown. He's been there for 12 years; runoff has always been a problem. Storm drains are t......

Summer's a good time to adorn roadways with fresh white and yellow stripes. But this season is threatening to catch road crews with their paints down. Just ask Manor Township public works director Mark Harris. Manor intends to spray more than 250,000 linear feet of line this su......

If you're one of the thousands of motorists who drive Columbia Avenue during the day, chances are you've been pleasantly surprised at the lack of construction congestion over the past two weeks. Here's some more good news: That's only going to continue. Since contractor Pennsy Supply In......

The three-day move of a 460-ton electrical generator from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant through western Lancaster County has been delayed again.The slow transport, which will result in traffic delays along Route 441 and across the Route 30 bridge, was scheduled to begin Friday....

Flattened signs. Craters in the roads. Squished guardrails.It was that kind of a winter.About 6 feet of snow fell here during a season that included several massive storms.Motorists slid into sign poles as they tried to negotiate snowy roads. Plow drivers ran into other poles......

A man driving a box truck damaged a historic covered bridge in southern Lancaster County and then left the scene without reporting the accident, state police said Wednesday.Edwin R. Figueroa, 44, of New Tripoli, has been charged with hit and run in connection to the March 1 incident at the......

A Mountville Borough resident sought relief from local and state officials after clearing his sidewalk last month, only to find PennDOT had plowed it closed with heavy slush and ice after the paralyzing snowstorm that hit the area Feb. 12.Scott Silvis, of 109 E. Main St., demanded action a......

You can almost hear the collective groans of tens of thousands of motorists who drive Route 222 in northern Lancaster County.Come Monday, single-lane restrictions will resume on the heavily traveled highway after a winter-season break. The lane restrictions are expected to occur intermitte......

If Jenny Engle wants to go anywhere, she has to drive Columbia Avenue. Engle lives several blocks from the notoriously busy road, and Columbia Avenue is the only main thoroughfare she can access from her neighborhood. So when she learned that PennDOT was to begin a major project there t......

A heavily traveled stretch of Columbia Avenue is likely to get even more congested beginning next week, when a major road improvement project gets under way.And the potential for traffic backups will continue through late summer.Workers Monday will begin the $2.25 million project to......

Two people — a 19-year-old Elizabethtown woman and a 64-year-old Lititz man — were killed in separate wrecks in the past two days.Tiffany Elizabeth Schafer was killed in a car crash Thursday morning on Anchor Road in Mount Joy Township. Two men were injured in the wreck.......

Motorists using Route 222 northeast of Lancaster will have to endure the single-lane restrictions on the four-lane highway only until the end of next week — but that is only a winter reprieve.The orange traffic cones will reappear with the first spring flowers and stay around all nex......

Thanks to an unexpected surplus of state stimulus funds, Route 30 in eastern Lancaster County will undergo a $5.2 million resurfacing project.Pennsylvania received $1.026 billion for transportation construction projects through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earlier this year....

Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond and Christmas Tree Shops will anchor the $40 million shopping center to be built this summer along the Route 30 strip. Mill Creek Square is proposed for 35 acres in East Lampeter Township along the south side of the highway, east of the Lancaster Host Resort an......

Nearly $90 million in federal and state funds will flow into Lancaster County this year and in 2010 for road and bridge improvements, state officials announced Monday.Route 222, a major north-south artery through the heart of the county, will receive the most attention as bridge work and l......

Nancy Santaniello and Monica Forte recall the moment of revelation. For months, they had led the charge against a proposed shopping center in Manheim Township's Granite Run Corporate Center. Both live along Fruitville Pike and oppose plans to widen the road to accommodate additional traf......

As President Barack Obama and members of Congress hash out the details of an economic stimulus package that could cost as much as $825 billion, at least one state agency already has created its wish list.The state Department of Transportation has unveiled a catalog of hundreds of road and ......

There's a good chance you'll decide to stay indoors today because of the chance of snow.But, after all, it is January."It's perfectly in tune with the season," Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com meteorologist, said Friday of the expected weekend snowfall, "es......

To sum up this morning's predicted driving conditions in one word — dicey.Freezing rain moved into the area Tuesday evening and was expected to continue overnight, leaving some roads slick as motorists head out for the morning commute.As much as a quarter-inch of ice could......

The aging bridge that carries Marietta Avenue over the Amtrak rail line in Mount Joy will be replaced with a lookalike next year.The steel truss bridge that has spanned the rail line since 1896 will give way to a similar steel bridge that planners say will meld with the historic district t......

A shortage of road salt and skyrocketing salt prices could mean slippery roads this winter in communities across the nation as officials struggle to keep pavements clear of snow and ice without breaking their budgets. Nationwide, prices have tripled since a year ago. The salt industry says the ......

Work on a new Strasburg bypass is about two months and some paperwork away."We've been working on this for a very long time," borough Mayor Bruce Ryder said Thursday. "We are very much looking forward to having it done."Greg Penny, a spokesman for the state D......

A 273-foot-long bridge that had carried southwestern Lancaster County traffic over the Pequea Creek since 1912 was removed Wednesday afternoon. A contractor for PennDOT used a large crane to lift and move a 142-foot main section of the one-lane bridge — which stretched between Conestoga a......

If any peregrine falcons or eagles are still nesting around Norman Wood Bridge over the Susquehanna River, local birder Tom Raub said they're staying out view.Of course, he said, because it's too late in the season for nesting, it's even more likely the birds have simply flown ......

Over the Octoraro Creek in Little Britain Township, something old is becoming something new. This week, construction crews began putting the wooden trusses of the old Pine Grove Covered Bridge onto new steel supports. The work is part of an ongoing $3.8 million rehabilitation of the cir......

In response to complaints, the state Department of Transportation is reducing the amount of clear-cutting along a local highway, though some residents are still frustrated. Residents along Route 222 have spoken against the clearing of trees and brush from a 100-foot-wide right of way along t......

Tourism was not a cause of the American Civil War, but it certainly has been an effect.And now, to help promote Pennsylvania's pivotal role in that conflict, which pitted American against American, the state Department of Transportation has placed 73 new signs in six counties promoting......

Mount Joy's Risser Mill Bridge, burned down by an arsonist six years ago, will be replaced by two bridges — one covered and one modern — according to plans.A hearing on the plans for the modern concrete bridge will be held at 7 p.m. tonight at the Mount Joy Campus of t......

Motorists who have been navigating the single-lane restrictions on Route 30 near Prospect Road will have more construction to contend with next week.The Route 30 entrance and exit ramps at the Prospect Road and Route 441 interchanges will be closed for repairs sequentially from Monday to T......

Continuing the study of Route 23 or building a new Route 441 around Columbia — pick one. That is the funding dilemma being placed before transportation planners. As the state shifts funding to the repair of structurally deficient bridges, money allocated for other projects is being c......

Spring is just around the corner. Be prepared to stop. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation kicks off its 2008 season Monday with two big projects getting under way. The first, and one of the most expensive projects planned in the county this year, is $11.36 million in improv......

Pieces of material may be falling from the Lititz Pike bridge, but state transportation officials said motorists traveling over the bridge shouldn't be concerned. It is the trains below that have a problem. A reported 70-foot section of concrete under the bridge, which carries Route 50......

Two construction workers were injured Thursday when a PennDOT truck struck them on a West Hempfield Township bridge, officials said.The workers, whose names weren't released to the media Thursday, were replacing a bridge over Strickler Run at Route 462 when they were struck about 10 a.......

Repairs to the Route 30 bridge between Lancaster and York counties will restrict travel for much of today.Greg Penny, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, issued an announcement Friday that eastbound travel will be limited to a single lane beginning at 9 a.m. today, weathe......

In one respect, it seems like much ado over not much. Beginning in early January, Franklin & Marshall College will begin construction of a median strip in the center of Harrisburg Avenue, designed to discourage pedestrians from crossing in the middle of the busy block. The strip will be a m......

What had been called one of the worst intersections in Lancaster County became much safer Wednesday when the state opened a new, realigned intersection of Routes 272 and 372 at the Buck.Route 372 was rerouted 1,250 feet south to meet Friendly Drive at Route 272. Friendly Drive also was wid......

Two construction workers were hospitalized Tuesday afternoon when a car struck them as they walked across a covered bridge in Little Britain Township, officials said.The one-vehicle crash happened about 2:20 p.m. on Pine Grove Covered Bridge on Ashville Road. The bridge — which was t......

An Upper Leacock Township official said Thursday he was shocked and surprised by PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny's suggestion that there is a lack of local support for a Route 23 highway alternative.Supervisor chairman Ron Simmons said he was referring to a Lancaster Online article he rea......

Nearly three decades ago, the state Department of Transportation was poised to build a Route 72 bypass around the city of Lebanon.Agency spokesman Greg Penny said the project, which seemed to have the support of the people, was on the fast track to construction.But when the Lebanon ......

For the past few months, Kathy DeHart and her co-workers at Country Pets Grooming Salon have had it easy. At least when it comes to getting in and out of work, anyway. The salon, 1027 Dillerville Road, is located just before the section of the road blocked off for construction of a new ......

An outdated one-lane bridge on Strasburg Pike was replaced with a $2.4 million two-lane span that planners say will relieve congestion and improve safety.•••The Mill Creek bridge, formerly a narrow bottleneck on the heavily traveled Str......

Traffic on Harrisburg and Manheim pikes on the western edge of Lancaster city should move a whole lot easier by week's end.PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny on Monday said that, barring any complications over the next two days, the section of Dillerville Road connecting the two pikes is exp......

Nearly one in four of Pennsylvania's 25,000 state-owned bridges — 22 percent — have been deemed "structurally deficient," including 177 in Lancaster County alone.But in the aftermath of the deadly bridge collapse Wednesday in Minneapolis, PennDOT says motorists can rest assured......

The stunning collapse of an eight-lane bridge over the Mississippi River has cast an intense light on the safety of such spans nationwide, including those in Pennsylvania. "We have bridges here that are very, very old, and I worry about them," said Jack McSherry Jr., a structural e......

Work on the much-traveled Dillerville Road multispan bridge is on schedule and should be completed as planned in mid-August, officials said Thursday.Crews placed beams last week and will pour concrete for a bridge deck next Wednesday, PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny said Thursday.Pavin......

The 87th annual Lancaster County Firemen's Association parade will snake through Manheim Township Saturday, closing a major road for part of the afternoon.A portion of Lititz Pike (Route 501) will be closed from 1:30 to approximately 4:30 p.m. to accommodate the parade, which will feat......

The aging bridge that carries Lititz Pike over the Amtrak lines and into Lancaster is slated to be replaced, and state officials want input from motorists and pedestrians concerning what the new span will look like.The state Department of Transportation will hold an open house tonight, inv......

For the next several months, navigating the area northwest of Lancaster city may be a bit of a challenge for motorists.Early this morning, crews were expected to close a well-traveled portion of Dillerville Road between Harrisburg and Manheim pikes to begin a $7.5 million bridge reconstruc......