Pennsylvania Highways Blog

After the 65th Little League World Series champion was crowned last month, the first Williamsport Road Enthusiast Meet was held this month, specifically today. I'd like to thank all who attended and for making the trip for the first meet in north central Pennsylvania.

The meet began as usual at 12 PM at the Bullfrog Brewery in downtown Williamsport. The food was good as well as the conversations. Mike Pruett brought some Maryland official highway maps and I brought copies of the new Turnpike System map as well as some old copies of the Pennsylvania official highway map for everyone.

After lunch, we hopped in our cars and followed US 15 to see the improvements made to the corridor over the past decade in order for it to be designated I-99. There are numerous signs along the way denoting it as the "Future I-99 Corridor."

The first stop was at the Cogan House interchange just north of the PA 14 interchange. What is interesting about this particular interchange is that the road that connects the two directions of US 15 are the original southbound lanes. They needed to be replaced due to sharp curves at the bottom of the Steam Valley hill, but the section here was retained and turned into an interchange for Cogan House.

We continued north to the next stop, at the next interchange, at PA 184 in Steam Valley. Prior to 2010, this was an at-grade intersection but of course had to be upgraded to an interchange for the I-99 designation to be applied. In order to create the junction, the right-of-ways of both US 15 and PA 184 were changed. As I mentioned above, the existing southbound lanes could not be used so the new ones were shifted eastward and the alignment of PA 184 was shifted southward. An interesting anomaly was created in that PA 184 technically doesn't end at US 15, but rather just to the east of the diamond interchange at Steam Mill Road.

I asked the group if they wanted to clinch US 15 from Williamsport to the New York state line, and everyone agreed we might as well since we were that far north. Crossing into New York, the roadway narrows down to two lanes through an interesting temporary interchange with very modern-looking light poles to illuminate the path. We made the first right to head back into Pennsylvania onto a road that connects to the old route of US 15 now known as Steuben County Route 115. Once in Lawrenceville, a few continued onto PA 287, which was extended northward after the expressway was completed to the west, and the rest onto PA 49 to head south on US 15.

The final stop of the tour was the beautiful Tioga Welcome Center, just south of the PA 287 interchange, which overlooks the Tioga Reservoir. Many have compared the recent flooding in the northern part of the state to that seen in the wake of Hurricane Agnes in 1972. That event was the impetus for construction of the reservoir, as the Allegheny Reservoir demonstrated the need by saving Western Pennsylvania the destruction seen in the east.

I showed the group the original path below of US 15 through Tioga and how it's alignment is now under water. Everyone was able to pick up brochures and maps, not only the 2010 official state one but also the 2008 Trucker's Guide to Pennsylvania. It is a black-and-white version of the regular map and the only colors on it denote the various truck routes as well as specific information for "gear jockeys" such as low clearance points and locations of steep grades. After taking the group picture there with the spectacular backdrop, we said our farewells, and headed to our respective destinations.

I decided to set off on my literary journey with an open mind and my Pennsylvania Turnpike bookmark. I felt that was fitting considering I was reading a book about the Interstate System, and the Turnpike was one of the earliest segments of it that was completed.

I say “an open mind” because I was skeptical as I approached reading this book since there are many in the Pennsylvania Highways Library on the history of the Interstates. However, in the Introduction, author Earl Swift hooked me with his description of the trip across the country which he took to research The Big Roads. As part of that trip, he came through the southern portion of the Commonwealth on the historic Lincoln Highway. Earl, his daughter, and a friend of hers stayed on the Lincoln through Buckstown to Ligonier and eventually onto Pittsburgh "…crawling from one stoplight to the next..." Unfortunately, that is a realistic description of travel down US 30 through Westmoreland and Allegheny counties!

The book takes readers on a journey, with a focus on persons who made the transition happen, beginning with Carl Fisher, a businessman in Indianapolis, who began his career selling bicycles then moved onto the "horseless carriage." To demonstrate the power of the car, he built a racetrack outside Indianapolis; and, after repaving the track with brick, the power of the automobile could be exhibited in the way he intended. He also got into the road-building business by backing the creation of the Lincoln Highway and its north-south counterpart the Dixie Highway.

Along the way, author Swift introduces us to Thomas Harris MacDonald who started his career in roads in Iowa by laying out their system before being tapped by the Feds to do the same on a national scale. We also meet Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1919 as a young Army officer, got a yearning for good roads after a cross-country trip on the Lincoln Highway and who, just under three decades later, would experience really good roads -- just not on this continent.

The one good road, whose idea and planning came from those Ike saw in Germany which were the forerunner of the Interstate System, was our very own Pennsylvania Turnpike. Just as safety was an impetus for the construction of the Interstates, the Turnpike was constructed to provide a safer alternative than the windy, mountainous, and narrow US 30 which was the primary route between Pittsburgh and the Mid-State area.

Once Eisenhower got into the White House, he pushed for the need for high-speed, limited-access highways such as the Autobahn his military used to speed across Germany en route to Berlin. He didn’t need to look far for ideas since the Bureau of Public Roads had drawn up plans for such expressways, albeit tolled, while Ike was Supreme Commander in World War II.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a saying that often rings true. When talking about the debate Congress had over the Federal Aid Highway Act, it rings like Big Ben at high noon. Some legislators came out in favor of the plan while others like Senator Albert Gore, the inventor of the Internet’s father, argued that it “…could lead the country to inflationary ruin.” Senator Harry Byrd said that “…nothing has been proposed during my twenty-two years in the United States Senate that would do more to wreck our fiscal budget system.” I’d hate to see what the talking heads on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News would have been saying had those channels existed at the time.

The Big Roads is not just a reflection on how the highway system of the country changed, but how the country itself changed. The Interstates allowed the movement of goods and people in a short amount of time and did so safely without the worry of cross-streets, traffic signals, stop signs, or rail crossings; and they all but eliminated head-on accidents in a uniform, monotonous drive devoid of local flavor. They also allowed for the growth of cities by pushing the suburbs farther out and creating satellite cities along beltways and bypasses. However, their paths into and through the cities would be a double-edged sword.

As I said in the beginning, I have other books on the Interstates and wondered how this book would differ. My answer would come in the final chapters of the book. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 was signed just before the tumultuous 1960s when the struggle for civil rights would reach its pinnacle. The urban Interstates were looked at as a way to rejuvenate the nation’s cities while clearing out undesirable sections. The problem was that those undesirable sections contained people, and those people did not want to lose their homes just so suburbanites could get downtown quicker. One such person was a man named Joe Wiles, who lived in the Rosemont section of Baltimore which was under attack by Interstate 70. Mr. Wiles led a revolt against construction of I-70, which was both successful and unsuccessful. His revolt succeeded when the planned route of I-70 through the City of Baltimore was cancelled, but it was also unsuccessful because discussions of the impending expressway doomed Rosemont to neglect and to becoming the type of area that would have been favored as an Interstate corridor. Black neighborhoods seemed to be under attack across the country from Nashville where I-40 was planned to isolate about 100 blocks from the City to even here in Pennsylvania where in Philadelphia the I-695/Crosstown Expressway was to sequester black neighborhoods from Center City. These seemed like classic examples of white men’s roads going through black men’s homes.

Those other books in the Library only talk about the positive aspects of the Interstates but hardly discuss the turmoil they caused as they carved their way across the country. I admire that Mr. Swift mentioned the issues of the urban routes through Baltimore, for example. When I write about the history of a route, I, too, mention the negatives in addition to the positives; and I am glad to see a publication which does the same.

I would recommend The Big Roads as a well-rounded look at how we have progressed from roads that were narrow, dirt paths to today's wide, concrete expressways. It would make for a good read, especially when you are stuck in traffic on one of the Interstates.



Purchase it in either hardcover or Kindle

Today at the ribbon-cutting event for the Mon-Fayette Expressway, not only did I pick up several free bottles of water compliments of the Turnpike Commission, I picked up something I haven't seen in years: a system map.

The PTC's belt-tightening in the recent years led to them not printing a map, but it is evident by looking at this one. The 2011 is much smaller than its 2004 ancestor and this change is summed up by a note below the legend:

To conserve natural and fiscal resources, our Travel Guide and Map is half the size of earlier editions. The new size also responds to a shift in how travelers -- in an age of online maps and GPS devices -- use printed maps today.

In addition, the map is not a PennDOT official with the Turnpike System highlighted in green with a white-on-green Keystone shield denoting the route number which has been the standard since the 1980s. It seems, with these two changes, that the Turnpike map is returning to its roots as ones from the 60s and 70s were printed by Rand McNally and General Drafting.

The main map of Pennsylvania has images of postcards of the Turnpike at the top of the map and in the corner a mention of the 70 years of the Turnpike, which was celebrated the previous year. One change I like is that the background of the border states are not pink or purple as they were on the 2004 map.

The back side of the map still includes information on the Turnpike such as E-ZPass, toll information (just like the first run of tickets this year, there is no fare schedule), and commercial trucking information. There strip maps for the system, but the insets of cities that the Turnpike passes through are gone. These are the map updates since the 2004 edition:

Allegheny County/Washington County
PA Turnpike 576 completed between I-376 and US 22

Beaver County/Lawrence County
I-376 replaced PA Turnpike 60

Fayette County
PA Turnpike 43 completed from Exit 15 to Exit 22

Fayette County/Washington County
PA Turnpike 43 under construction from US 40 to PA 88

The cover features three postcards of various sections from the original Turnpike with the logo of the 70th anniversary in the middle. You can view the strip maps at the Turnpike's page.

Tom Petty said the waiting is the hardest part, and the Turnpike Commission can attest to that musical proclamation. The Mason-Dixon Link, the portion from said line of demarcation to Exit 8 of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, was built in the late 1990s and opened for the most part on March 1, 2000. The exception was the piece from West Virginia to Exit 2 which would remain unopened for a little over a decade due to construction of WV 43 taking longer than projected due to finance issues. Ironically that problem would be solved during the economic downturn of the latter part of the last decade when ARRA, or economic stimulus, dollars were provided to the states for "shovel-ready" projects.

At last, the time finally came to let that "new road smell" loose and allow vehicles other than construction company ones to drive across the state line. For it was on July 11, 2011 that not one, but two ribbon-cutting ceremonies were held: one south of the Mason-Dixon Line and one north.

West Virginia Department of Transportation was up first at 10:30 AM and they brought their starting line-up of dignitaries including Senator Joe Manchin III and Governor Earl Ray Tomblin. Below is some footage from the West Virginia ceremony.



After the ribbon was cut, it was time to jump into the shuttle buses that were provided or your personal vehicle and head back north into Pennsylvania. Our ribbon-cutting event was not as long nor as well attended by dignitaries as West Virginia's, and it seems the size of the water bottles each had for attendees was reflective of these traits of the respective ceremonies.



The people most responsible for the highway coming into existence are behind the sign, from left to right: PTC Commissioner J. William Lincoln, new PTC CEO William K. Lieberman, Senator Richard Kasunic, and former Senator J. Barry Stout.

The ribbon was cut and thus marked the end of the 11 year wait for the Mon-Fayette Expressway's "Mason-Dixon Link" to finally cross the Mason-Dixon Line.

Officials Open Yet Another Part of Mon-Fayette Expressway - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The 1980s were a great time to be a kid. Sure we didn't have iPhones or XBoxes or Legos you can control by computer, but we had other electronic devices to keep us amused. I know, I know, we had the Atari 2600, but I'm not referring to anything that required a connection to a TV.

Slot cars were a popular past time in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much like a model railroad, the vehicles were powered by electricity from the tracks they rode upon. Just as a model railroad looks like the real-world version in the type of track it uses, slot cars use a plastic track that looks like a highway with small wires embedded into it to power the cars. As slot cars became increasingly popular, TYCO (the Mattel division and not the international conglomerate whose CEO ran it into the ground in the early part of the 21st Century) introduced the HO-scale US 1 Electric Trucking.



It was a twist on the typical slot car racetrack in that instead of racing two cars side-by-side, you could "drive" vehicles in opposing directions on a track that looked like a road. Now I know what you are going to say, "I already experience the nightmarish trafficscape that is Roosevelt Boulevard, why would I want to when I am at home?" The only similarity the little plastic roadway shared with its concrete and asphalt cousin was the designation.

Much like HO-scale train sets have different themes, so did US 1. Of course there were Big City Trucking, Big Hauler Trucking, City Hauler Trucking, Cross Country Trucking, Long Haul Trucking, Coast-to-Coast Trucking, Motor City, Interstate Delivery, and Interstate Trucking sets of various sizes with various "exits" for dump yards, terminals, and material loaders. In a nod to the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, of which the toy was modeled after, there was an Army Transport set that had dark green colored trucks which hauled crates of ammunition and drums of, no doubt, some classified substances. At least a decade before the word "intermodal" came into existence, US 1 was already there with an airport and a combination rail and road set. The latter was a little dangerous for US 1 drivers as the rail crossings were at grade without warning signals.



Rather than buying all of the sets, you could buy individual accessories like the auto loader from the Motor City set or the fire station from the Fire Alert! set. Besides other trucks and various trailers, additional vehicles could be purchased to customize your layout such as an Airport Taxi to travel to the airport or a fire engine to sit at the ready in your fire station.



One of the presents my parents got me for Christmas 1984 was the Highway Construction set. I remember walking into the Family Room that early morning, rubbing my eyes, and making out what looked like a little roadway set up near the fireplace in the early morning light. As a young road enthusiast, I was entertained by this toy that was based in an interest of mine. It was a great and fun toy, and a shame that TYCO stopped manufacturing the US 1 Electric Trucking line in 1986. One of these days, I need to make an "archeological dig" in my parent's basement and find all of the pieces so I can take a trip down memory lane, via a small slot truck.

TYCO US-1 Trucking Resource