Know of any ‘choke points’ in your neck of the woods? PHIA needs to know
Although it is unlikely that the General Assembly will act on the funding issue until next year, it is extremely important to keep transportation issues in the public’s eye through the fall. PHIA and the Keystone Transportation Funding Coalition plan to coordinate outreach and publicity efforts centered on a theme of “the cost of doing nothing.”
To support this effort, we are looking for examples throughout Pennsylvania of traffic “choke points” – places where congestion occurs on a daily basis, causing delays and wasting fuel and money. As an example, if my 15-mile daily commute should ordinarily take 20 minutes, but congestion and the resulting stop-and-go traffic flow causes it to take an additional 10 minutes, I have driven the equivalent of 7 ½ additional miles. If I do that twice daily, five days per week, I have driven the equivalent of 75 additional miles, which in my 25-mpg vehicle wastes three gallons of gas costing about $10.
We want to know where your choke points are. If you can catch a short video on your smart phone, even better. In addition to the location, we would need to know:
- the length of the bottleneck,
- the amount of time it SHOULD take to get through it, and
- the amount of time it takes to get through it with congestion.
If you’ll drop us a note with that information, we’ll pinpoint the choke point on the interactive ReConnectPA web site and calculate the amount of wasted fuel and money, and ultimately see that it comes to the attention of your local state senator and representative, as well as Governor Corbett. Please forward the information to Jason Wagner, PHIA managing director, at JWagner@pahighwayinfo.org.
Thanks in advance, and we look forward to hearing from you.
