Route 222 work takes wrong turn

Project was set for next spring, but with stimulus money available, it got started early. Motorists paid with delays.

Nov 22, 2009 00:13 EST

Lancaster

By Gil Smart, Staff Writer

The complete text of this article is no longer available online.

Recent Posts

We welcome opinions and information from all points of view. They enrich our news coverage.

We ask that your comments respect the opinions of others. Personal attacks and hate speech are not acceptable and, when reported, will be edited or removed. Offenders will be banned from making comments.

To post comments, you must provide us your real name and contact information. Sign up takes only a moment. You can do it here.

Please Sign Up Here

Our full TalkBack policy and rules appear here.

Showing 5 most recent comments out of 17 total TalkBack comments about this article
View full comments | Comment on this article

He's worried that people "may" get a bad attitude about the stimulus plan ?
Where has this guy been ?
Congressional districts that don't exist ?
5 million to create half a dozen new jobs, or to give raises to existing jobs ?
Report Abuse

knowntome

QUOTE (jlwindle @ Nov 22 2009, 10:31 AM)

sorry to hear that soooo many people have the WHINE FLU. "road work is road work" if people can't find alternate roads around 222; they should buy a road map. i don't remember people complaining when west 283 to harriburg was being re-done. we all found different ways to travel. usually these types of people are the ones who can't leave to go anywhere early or they'll be the ones complaining when their vehicles cost alot of money for damage done by roads that weren't taken care of. my advice is to look for alternate routes & let them get their work done!

So wait you registered to complain about people complaining? Read the John Lennon avatar post, then reread it. Then try to find a decent alternative route to 222 at say 2am. Then try the same test in rush hour. Then collect the hair off the passanger seat that used to be attache to your head which you were forced to pull out due to the madness.
Report Abuse

mikeydiablo

Well, as usual, all PennDot would have to do is use it's head once in a while and traffic interruption would be minimized, work would be accomplished at a fast pace and at a reasonable cost.
Run the project 24 hours a day five days a week and plan to pick up the lane restrictions every Friday by 4:00 p.m., cause nothing is more irritating than trying to get home to get the weekend started to be slowed by construction on a major thoroughfare at 5:00 on Friday.
But that would make sense.

I drove through it a couple times mid-day and like everyone else, I saw miles of traffic cones while moving at a snails pace, but never saw anyone working nor did I see anything change from one week to the next. One exception, late June or early July, I hauled a car-cass on a tow-dolly. I did see people working in the area of the turnpike exit, but I think that was a different project.
Report Abuse

solitary

Oh, if we think it was bad now, just wait until next spring when Penndot starts the 272 Cocalico Creek bridge replacement near Reamstown AND restarts the work on 222 together! They're not doing the 272 bridge one lane at a time -- they're closing the roadway and detouring. And, the covered bridge will be closed as well, so there won't be any shortcuts. We'll all need helicopters to get around.

Report Abuse

taxpayer17578

QUOTE (Shining Wizard @ Nov 23 2009, 09:02 AM)

PennDot does a crappy job with a lot of things. Do you remember the one year people were stranded on one of the interstates (I believe it was I-83) for three days because of their incompetence in dealing with a snow / ice storm layer? They claimed that they weren't prepared for it when in reality the meteorologists predicted it a number of days back? I won't forget the "8 On Your Side" interview a number of days after that. One of the spokespeople for PennDot answered every question with an "umm..." or an "ah....", like a incompetent moron.

Their decision-making sucks, plain and simple. Rt. 23 during evening rush hour is absolutely terrible, partly due to that route being a detour for the Rt. 222 disaster. That, and there are two red lights in a row around the area of Juke Box and Butter Road that seem to sync at the exact same time, and that causes a horribly long backlog from Butter Road all the way to the Rt. 30 interchange...at 5:00pm at night all the way to nearly 6:00pm. Smart move, PennDot.

I have plenty of examples of PennDot's shear incompetence, but I can wait until winter time when they screw up another plow job.

That was I-80. The meteorologists were calling for an inch or 2 of snow, then heavy icing. So PennDOT's plan was to leave keep the snow on the ground, so the icing would not be as bad (makes sense). But the meteorologists screwed up (big surprise!) and they got more snow than was predicted. By the time the plows could go out, traffic was FUBARed. Can't exactly take a snowplow through gridlock. Then people started running out of gas, clogging the roads until they could bring in trucks to drag them out. biggest mistake (IMunprofessionalO) was not having the national guard out to just bring all the people in the first day, and have them abandon their cars. I have no clue what part of our National guard was even available in this state due to the crap overseas.. but that's another issue.

The road structure going north-south in this state sucks. Everything is primarily east-west. And whenever something is proposed *cough* goat path *cough*, then the NIMBYs and BANANAs come out in force against it. You reap what you sow.
Report Abuse

gp80mac

View full comments | Comment on this article