Saturday was the latest edition of the longest running road enthusiast meets and I'd like to thank all who traveled both near and far to attend.
The meet began at 12 PM at Garfield's in the Uniontown Mall on US 40 near the US 119 interchange. The food and conversation was excellent as always. I provided each attendee with a copy of the 2007 PennDOT map.
After the lunch portion, we headed down US 40 to see the newBrownsville Connector. We decided to make the Searights Toll House the first stop, and it's best that we did. I noticed that one of the windows appeared to be open. Upon further examination, it wasn't open but rather someone had taken one of the bricks from the steps and smashed the window. Also the screen door at the entrance had been ripped and pulled at in several places. The police were called and they said they'd notify the proprietors.
The next stop was to see the new US 40 connector that just opened east of Brownsville. What struck those of us who attended the 2006 gathering was that the former partially constructed interchange just north of PA 166 where US 40 traffic had to turn to continue has been replaced by an at-grade intersection. Even though last year, we noticed grading for what appeared to be the other entrance/exit ramps had taken place which is noted on the
US 40 page. Also, PA 166's northern terminus has not moved to intersect the new US 40 alignment, but still ends at the former intersection a block to the south. There is grading for the future PA Turnpike 43 interchange which will be a temporary end until the loop around Brownsville is completed.
Heading back to Uniontown, we took a small detour over a new connector road that has been built between PA 51 and US 40 and will also serve an interchange of PA Turnpike 43. It is five lanes wide (four travel lanes and a center turn lane), and it was built through the location where I attended the groundbreaking for the Uniontown/Brownsville section seen on the
PA Turnpike 43 page.
We took PA 43/PA Turnpike 43 south and stopped at the current end at Gans Road before continuing south into West Virginia to see how they are progressing on their section. From PA 857/WV Secondary 857, you can see the bridge on the state line has been finished complete with a "Welcome to West Virginia" sign gantry at the southern end. Turning off onto Morgan's Run Road we got an up-close look at another pair of spans taking shape and saw a completed section of WV 43 with signage already installed. Back at 857 we kept heading south to the Cheat Lake interchange to see the construction taking place in preparation of the directional T interchange between I-68 and WV 43.
After turning around we headed back to Garfield's where we said our goodbyes, Merry Christmases, Happy New Years, and headed to our respective destinations.
