Albrightsville Interchange - PA House whip McCall to get Penn Pike payoff?

State house majority whip Keith McCall and Pennsylvania Turnpike CEO Joseph Brimmeier are set to announce Friday "a new Turnpike access point in northern Carbon County,"  McCall's constituency to quote an announcement today. McCall was one of the fiercest opponents of a longterm lease of the Turnpike, so the deal has all the appearances of a political pay-off.

By all indications the new interchange is to be at about Mile Post 87 where state route 903 crosses over the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension (I-476). Albrightsville where McCall has his offices is a small unincorporated settlement with some hundreds of houses built in the years since the Turnpike was built through the area in the late 1950s.

To get to the Turnpike and south to Philadelphia the locals have to drive over it on PA903 and then more than 10 miles (16km) south to the nearest interchange, the Mahoning Valley IC near MP 76 (though perversely the interchange is called IC74).

The next interchange north is the Pocono IC near MP95, about 6 miles (10km) from Albrightsville at I-80.

There are already ramps for service and emergency vehicles moving between the Turnpike and local roads at PA903.

Using all-electronic tolling  a simple diamond interchange would work here.  Construction would be mainly ramps and perhaps a rebuild of the PA903 overbridge.

Existing interchanges to the north and south are twin trumpets (see aerial and map nearby), designed to bring all four directions of traffic in to one traffic stream for a single manual toll plaza.

Other disconnects

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is still poorly connected to many local communities, and indeed to interstates. The most notorious disconnects where the Turnpike crosses another intertstate but has no connection are at:

- I-70 in Breezewood where local merchants have for years bribed politicians to block direct connections so all interchanging traffic Penn Pike to I-70 South is forced to detour a couple of miles and to traverse the main street of Breezewood

- I-95 in northeast PA where the connection is even more roundabout

COMMENT: A simple all-electronic interchange with PA903 at little Albrightsville with the Turnpike wouldn't rank with these - or many others in denser developed areas - as a priority but it still makes sense given the long trek for some hundreds of people to the closest interchanges north and south.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-10-21