Corridor O Loses Priority

[PAHighways]

The plan to build a four-lane, limited-access highway between I-80 near Kylertown to I-99 at Port Matilda was dealt another blow.  Support from the Appalachian Regional Commission has shifted from this project to another that has seemed to be stuck in neutral:  the Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway project in Union, Snyder and Northumberland Counties.

http://www.centredaily.com/2010/10/29/2303395/corridor-o-project-loses-priority.html

[froggie]

Not surprised that the losing party is claiming the decision is "politically motivated".  Nevermind that CSVT serves a larger travelshed and has bigger traffic problems than US 322.

[vdeane]

I can't really complain if this will move the Shamokin Dam bypass closer to completion.  That area is the last real slow-down between Rochester and points south.

[mightyace]

Yes, the southern end of it is heavy in commercial development.  Getting through traffic off that segment of current US 11-15 would help everyone out.

[jemacedo9]

I travel that stretch of US 11/15 once a mth, and it would easily shave off 20-30 min off that trip if the CSVT is built...and it would also take a ton of truck traffic away from the US 11 / PA 147 intersection in Northumberland Borough...

[treichard]

Back-ups occur daily at the US 11/PA 147 intersections in Northumberland, often extending across the Susquehanna in each direction.  A particular problem is that US 11 and PA 147 from Shamokin Dam to Milton is a major truck route without a truck-friendly design.  

As US 11 reaches Northumberland from the south, the road dips under a railroad overpass and back up to the first PA 147 intersection.  Trucks have to accelerate from zero uphill and turn sharply left, a slow maneuver, which means that only a few vehicles can pass through the protected left turn phase of the traffic light cycle, making the back-up slow to decay.  The left-turn lane is also short because there isn't enough room for 3 lanes under the railroad overpass.  This situation is a reason that the northern part of the CSVT, from US 15 to PA 147, is planned to be built first when the funding arrives.  Through traffic needs to be taken out of the middle of Northumberland.

Many properties have already been acquired and demolished for this section, which was supposed to be under construction by 2004 under the present project, and by the late 1970s under the earlier Harrisburg-Williamsport corridor studies that resulted in the Duncannon, White Deer, Selinsgrove, and Milton bypasses and I-180 and widening projects in between.

The Hummels Wharf part of US 11/15 is locally known as an extension of the Susquehanna Valley Mall parking lot between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.  Locals know that it can often be faster and a more pleasant drive to opt for the 30 mph Old Trail from Hummels Wharf  to Shamokin Dam or for US 522, PA 204, and Kratzerville Road from Selinsgrove to near Winfield to make better progress than the suffering through the multitude of lights amongst the congestion along the "Golden Strip" (US 11/US 15).

I've driven on US 322 and PA 53, the roads that the lower-priority Corridor O-1 freeway would bypass.  I've never encountered congestion there (though I have not experienced rush hour in Philipsburg).  The nearby areas where I have encountered congestion  (former US 220 and former US 322) have been solved by I-99.

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Here is the Daily Item's article:

http://dailyitem.com/0100_news/x708135922/Panel-OKs-money-for-thruway

[LeftyJR]

I think that O-1 would be a nicer alternative for Continental 1, rather than mess with US-219 north of Ebensburg.  I think it will eventually get built, but not for years.  The CSVT project is far more important to central PA right now.  US 11/15 are a mess near Selinsgrove and Shamokin Dam and are the only slowdowns from Harrisburg to Williamsport (and Corning). 

Now if US 15 could only bypass Harrisburg and Camp Hill...

[mightyace]

Now if US 15 could only bypass Harrisburg and Camp Hill...

You could route in over PA 581 to I-81 then follow I-81 back to it's current routing at exit 65 (Marysville - Enola) or could route it over to exit 67 and follow the US 22-322 freeway to the intersection with the current alignment north of Duncannon.

Also, US 11 could join I-81 at Carlisle (Exit 52) and get off at exit 65 or 67 along with US 15.

With the exit 67 routing, you'd have a quadruplex of US 11/15/22/322!

EDIT: Back to reality, sort of!

Peter Samuel is at it again: Road politics and tolls - 3 case studies from Pennsylvania

Here is the editorial from the end masquerading as an article:

Pennsylvania is probably not unusual in presenting a mixed set of attitudes toward toll financing - some areas like the upper Susquehanna Valley on US15 seeing road finance as traditional beggar-your-neighbor politics of the Carney kind, others like US219 tentatively looking to tolls, and others again like US 422 in the Schuylkill Valley accepting toll financing as inevitable - and getting on with it.

The election campaigns haven't highlighted transportation funding but the many new legislators and governors likely to be swept in on the predicted political tsunami will quickly have to go from easy talk to hard choices.

Here and elsewhere, he bemoans the "funding" methods secured for the CSVT instead of using tolling.

But, IMHO it is easy to see why tolling is not being considered for the CSVT.  The proposed highway is in the middle of PA and the north end would only be a few miles south of I-80.  Even assuming that tolling this highway makes sense, any politician that proposed tolling this would be bringing up memories of the closing of the latest attempt to toll I-80 that fell earlier this year.  And, therefore, he/she would be risking electoral failure.

On an unrelated note, the image he uses for a tolling gantry for the US 422 project is a PTC rendering for the I-80 project!

EDIT 2:
Apparently the voters of the 10th district were not swayed by this "bacon".  Christopher Carney lost his seat to Republican challenger Thomas Marino.

[PAHighways]

The idea of a US 219 expressway being built as a toll road has been talked about for years, and unlike I-80, was included in a second round of proposed PTC extensions.