We returned from Chicago last night after a wonderful visit to my home town to celebrate my mother’s 85th birthday. On the way back, I found another entry in my list of “things that tick me off” – list of those things everything in life that I find extraordinary frustrating or moronic. I created this list as a cathartic exercise to keep me from spontaneous explosions or psychotic episodes. When I encounter something like this, I simply say “I’ll add it to the list.” This week’s addition is Breezewood, Pennsylvania.
Anyone traveling from the Midwest (millions of drivers each week) will usually take the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Interstate 70. While the other turnpikes simply connect to other turnpikes or interstates with ramps, drivers hit a bottleneck at Breezewood where millions of drivers are forced to pass through the unincorporated town and stop at a red light. The result is as you might expect if you put a red light in the middle of one of the nation’s busiest highways — gridlock at peak times. Over ten years ago, Business Week called Breezewood “perhaps the purest example yet devised of the great American tourist trap…the Las Vegas of roadside strips, a blaze of neon in the middle of nowhere, a polyp on the nation’s interstate highway system.” Since then, the problems have only multiplied with the increase in traffic.
I travel through Breezewood often and generally have little trouble. We often stop at the Starbucks on the way to Pittsburgh or Chicago to see relatives. It is the perfect distance for a stop from Washington.
Last night, however, I hit the city on a weekend coming from Chicago to Washington — particularly a Sunday. We had just covered over 700 miles and four states over the prior ten hours. We then spent over an hour moving less than a mile in the chaos that is Breezewood. First, millions encounter just four or five booths to leave the turnpike. It was so bad yesterday (45 minutes just to get to the booth) that I asked the turnpike collector if this was a worst than usual day. He laughed and said that it was a typical Sunday. Then, you faced even greater chaos as cars get out of the gates and face gridlock as the five lines are merged into two lanes in a relatively short space. There are no painted lines so cars are every possible angle as they inch forward. This is to force all of the cars into a sharp curve to direct them into the center of Breezewood with its fast food joints and gas stations. The cars then hit the traffic light in the center of the town. The result can be traffic jams on three different highways that connect around the city.
In the ultimate trip through six states, we spent one-tenth of our time moving through Breezewood. Call me a skeptic, but I wonder if this is really necessary. Breezewood is historically a junction for travelers in the area. While you would not know it from the strip of fast-food joints and tee-shirt shops, the town goes back to colonial times and once housed British troops. However, it would seem easy to create a bypass ramp from the turnpike to 1-70 or an elevated ramp at the intersection to allow traffic to move directly to 1-70 without stopping at the light or the town.
This is of course not unique. There are other planned bottlenecks between highways, but few are at such a critical junction. While the transfer results in millions of dollars in sales for Breezewood, it adds huge delays for travelers going to Washington or other East Coast destinations. Such tourist traps can produce a race to the bottom if other states burden the Interstate System with bottlenecks and loops through towns like Breezewood. While there are an estimated 1000 people working in the city, millions are delayed with added costs of fuel and time. Many of us would still stop in Breezewood if we were given a choice but we are not given the choice. It is time to remove the bottleneck with a bypass in Breezewood.
Now I feel better.
Take I 80 East until you hit I 39 North to Wisconsin. Then I 43.
Darren Smith 1, August 6, 2012 at 3:33 pm
I-90 had the same thing. For a long while the only Red light from Seattle to Boston was in a small town named Wallace, Idaho. You got to drive unimpeded from Seattle for about 358 miles then go through Wallace’s stop light, then continue the remaining 3,100 miles all the way to the end.
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Watch out for the fires in northern Idaho. Do you think you want to go to through Missoula instead?
Getting between I81 and the Penn Tpk in the Carlisle area is a PITA also.
Professor – I think we could use a re-cap of your “TTTMO”.
What about it? From 10 – 1.
My first impression of Pa was Breezewood. I have not rushed back.
i find it’s better if i don’t write things like “list of things that piss me off”. it’s just more evidence to use against me.
pete,
it does seem petty to me as well. it is after a nice meal of hotdogs and hamburgers aroundd the campfire, while the world’s burning on the horizon lights up the
sky.
but is also bad form to say so and kill the ambiance the others have created. new realization everyday now. the mind is capable of new perceptions.
Cool it. Or as Oscar Brown, jr sang: “but I was cool…” Enjoy the glow.
just don’t get ostracized.
Boy, I hope I never have to drive anywhere East of the Rockies! Sounds horrific! Otteray, I WISH I could drive the old US system, but great stretches of Hwy 99 have simply been overlain with Interstate 5 on our main route from current abode to family in BC. With Freeway speed in WA state up to 70 MPH, it’s really terrifying, esp anywhere you’re going through urban areas! or it’s raining (duh!) or it’s after dark! and of course, “urban” is almost half the length of the state! Olympia-Ft Lewis-Tacoma-Seattle-Everett!!! argh. I think you’ve inspired me to go get Google-Earth and see what I can find, though I don’t have much hope.
PS Click for the english translation of the swedish text—if you are not there when you arrive.
Here comes OT pappa again:
While you folks are driving down memory lane, there are other things happening. My post above was so off-key, BUT…..here comes another.
1) for laughs: BorowitzReport If the Internet is any guide, a lot of people who are pro-gun are also anti-spelling.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/humor#ixzz22nRzSfBn
Thanks to the tipper who gave it to me. He also has a daily column there with false news and satire.
2) do you listen to your daughters or granddaughter’s ring-in programs on radio? Well I did today. It was in Swedish, a young Swedish NYC celeb was in town and answered all kinds of questions, including the most kinky sex scene she had been in. Very adept.
Want to meet her?
http://rodeo.net/niotillfem/
I-90 had the same thing. For a long while the only Red light from Seattle to Boston was in a small town named Wallace, Idaho. You got to drive unimpeded from Seattle for about 358 miles then go through Wallace’s stop light, then continue the remaining 3,100 miles all the way to the end.
In the 70’s the department of transportation wanted to put the highway through that would have cut through the downtown area significantly. The city council then got the feds to put the downtown on the registry for historic places. This forced the DOT to run I-90 right through a downtown with the one traffic light. It wasn’t until around 1990 a very expensive elevated overpass was erected eliminating the need to drive downtown.
I don’t know what the economic cost was to the town right after the bypass opened, but Wallace’s reputation for houses of ill repute might have been affected.