BREEZEWOOD PA:Shakedowntown

A totally unnecessary 10 to 12 minutes, several unnecessary miles, and a long cycle traffic signal is added to the journey of 15,000 drivers/day who traverse the Penna pike/I-70 interchange. The forced drive-through of the commercial strip is a payoff to the pols’ backers. In place of a straightforward interchange where the two highways meet, the two motorways pass over one another without ramps and they have their separate feeder roads in and out of each end of the main street of Breezewood. There motorists three abreast are made to wait at a traffic signal contemplating a gaudy collection of roadside businesses, drive down the main street past each of these establishments, before they are allowed to loop back to the other motorway feeder.

The pols backers are a bunch of gas stations, motels and fast-food businesses that have made the whole main street of Breezewood a kind of remote service plaza to the turnpike (I-76) and I-70. But it is a service plaza everyone traveling I-70/Penna pike is forced to stop at.

The JOURNAL described the scene this way: “At night, Breezewood seems to burst out of nowhere, a bonfire of neon and halogen lighting up an Appalachian hollow once lighted by fireflies. Vying for motorists’ money are Wendy’s and Hardee’s, Amoco and Sunoco — more than 30 establishments in all. Anchoring the strip is the Gateway Travel Plaza, where truckers can shower and eat, play video games or pray with a chaplain. Tourists can get an ‘Americana fix,’ as one Gateway customer puts it, of meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and top it off with a Dairy Queen cone... But on the heaviest traffic days, Breezewood is more tar pit than pit stop. On last year’s worst day, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, traffic in the eastbound lanes on the turnpike backed up for 15 miles, trying to squeeze onto the exit to I-70. The backup began here and extended through the toll plaza to the pike.”

The JOURNAL identifies six families that own businesses in Breezewood as big Shuster backers, the most prominent being the Bittners, owners of the Gateway Travel Plaza, the Feltons who own several motels on the strip, and the Wilts who own much of the remaining prime commercial real estate. The JOURNAL tracked down $25k in payoffs to Shuster from the Breezewood strip families.

The Turnpike’s acquiescence in Shuster’s wishes has few defenders. Bill Fay of the American Highway Users was quoted as urging a direct connection in place of the forced detour through Breezewood: “The whole purpose of interstates is to have unimpeded travel. (With a direct connection) you would have less road rage, fewer crashes, and greater efficiency.”

Frank Turner longtime head of federal highways told the JOURNAL he was sure President Eisenhower, “father of the interstate system” would find Breezewood “appalling.” Turner said it simply isn’t fair to travelers to force them to drive by a main street of businesses. In hundreds of places around the country entrenched interests attempted to engineer main street drive-throughs like Breezewood, but most places officials of integrity faced them down and said No.

Shuster has a co-conspirator in Robert Jubelirer, boss of the state senate (see BRIEFS p1), who has constantly blocked efforts at the state level to even study a direct connection IC at the pike and I-70. Jubelirer admits that Breezewood businesses are incapable of competing on their merits and attracting patronage without the traffic being forced through the town. “Take that traffic away and Breezewood would die,” Jubelirer told the JOURNAL.

Noone is suggesting that the awful Breezewood strip be disconnected from the Penna pike or I-70 – though that would be condign punishment for corruption, true justice after years of aggravation – just that as elsewhere drivers be given the choice of traveling, or not traveling, the length of a commercial strip. This could be accomplished (see dashed lines in map) by construction of just two ramps: (1) a simple 90deg Penna pike/I-70 right-turn ramp (2) a 270deg loop I-70/Penna pike – at the point where the roadways already cross, but presently have no connections. It is open countryside! Not a barn even to acquire.

A few years back the Turnpike actually reinforced the position of the Breezewood Strip by building an overpass and low speed 270 degree loop at the east end of the Breezewood strip for Penna Pike to I-70 traffic plus some widening of the main street rather than the needed direct connector ramps I-70/Penna Pike. This followed a furore in 1987 after Thanksgiving when rear-end collisions on one day alone in Breezewood injured 18-people. A state senator from Pittsburgh Michael Dawida was himself hurt in a rear-ender and moved for studies of the direct connection. But Jubelirer acted as the Main Street patron in blocking it.

The Penna pike has the resources to build these direct connections at IC-12 quite independently of politicians. But so far it has consistently chosen to pander to politicians on the take at the expense of the convenience and safety of its patrons.