I recently experienced a rush hour nightmare on my way from P-Burgh to WashPa. And, as a faithful reader of the Post-Gazette column, "Getting Around," I submitted an email to Joe Grata, the writer of said column. Here it is in its entirety:
"Dear Mr. Grata,
To begin, I love your "Getting Around" column. It speaks the truth about PennDOT and other transportation woes in the Pittsburgh region. A feat that is unduplicated around these parts.
As a Pittsburgher who commutes to Washington, PA for work via the Parkway West and Interstate 79 South, I was wondering if you could shed some light on a particularly confounding PennDOT practice I have suffered through time and time again. Why, oh, why does PennDOT choose the morning rush hour to accomplish a relatively small project that could be completed, say, after 10 a.m. and before 3 p.m.?
The most recent example of this foolishness which caused hundreds, if not a few thousands, of folks to be late for work on Wednesday, October 10 began shortly after the Bridgeville exit on 79 South. Slowing from 65 mph (yes, I know that the speed limit is only 55 on 79; this is another source of my commuter angst), I passed a construction sign that flashed something to the the effect of "LEFT LANE CLOSED NEXT 20 MILES." Um, what? I was traveling in the left lane. And I continued to travel in the left lane for the next 12 or so miles at approximately 10-15 mph in stop-and-go traffic. I couldn't figure out what PennDOT could possibly be doing for 20 miles without some type of advanced notice. When I appraoched Canonsburg, there appeared to be a plume of dark smoke, and then my hypothesis changed to: well, maybe it isn't PennDOT, but a horrible fiery accident. Alas, the smoke was coming from the valley, not from the roadside. Finally, a slowly-moving PennDOT truck with one of those blinking arrows pointing to the right became visible, and the merging commenced. Between this arrow truck and the next, there were two PA State Police vehicles, then more PennDOT trucks slowly meandering southbound in the left lane. And when I was in view of the reason for the whole darn traffic snarl, I could not believe what I saw: two workers jumping on and off of the truck quickly replacing those reflector thingys along the white broken center lane dividing line. At 8:30 in the morning.
I am a veteran commuter. I always build at least 15 extra minutes into my trip in case of heavy traffic, accidents, etc. However, I was still 15 minutes late for work Wednesday. And that just gets the day off to a bad start.
We both know that this project did not take these workers longer than a portion of the morning to complete. However, I am baffled as to why they could not just wait until 10 a.m. to begin this work. (Case in point: I had Columbus Day off and I traveled from the South Side Slopes to IKEA in Robinson Township in just 15 minutes in very light traffic at 10 in the morning.) It would increase the safety of the workers, their vehicles, other motorists, preclude the possiblilty of higher blood pressure and stress in motorists, and well, allow us all to get to work on time.
This episode is not unusual. There have been bridge inspections and other justified nonsense which, again, could take place at a later hour. Is their scheduling designed to cause road rage and other medical and emotional distress in the citizens of this fair Commonwealth? Or does this have something to do with the ridiculously early shifts that PennDOT schedules so that their workers can get home in time to catch the afternoon soap opera lineup? I mean, really, we already put up with an un-Godly number of simultaneous construction projects and are forced to remember which road is closed at what time and which detour to take. This rush hour junk is simply over the top.
Please advise."
Two days later, Joe emailed me back with this:
"thanks for your note. let's ask penndot about this. tnx, joe grata"
Joe had forwarded my concerns to a bureaucrat named James Struzzi. However, I have not yet received a response from Mr. Struzzi. WTF? I know that he has better things to do than email pissed off commuters, but I have better things to do than be late for work for no good reason.
I'll let you know what happens...
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5 comments:
Are you stupid enough to believe that what you seen the worker doing is *all* they had to d that entire day? Or maybe, just maybe, there were multiple other tasks to be performed by those same workers. And scheduling things in manner of location would contribute, you cannot waste time and fuel running all over the place to please everyone all of the time. If those workers had been on another job somewhere else - there would be another narrow-minded traveler such as yourself complaining about the same thing. And with reagrd to the barrier - just look at accident history with roadworkers - it's not like a fender bender - PEOPLE DIE more often than not when they are pedestrians hit by moving vehicles - especially those traveling on major highways going 65MPH in a 55MPH zone. Try looking at thing from another perspective before shooting off your mouth like some selfish, whiny baby.
Was that James Struzzi's reply?
It's not just Pittsburgh. I'm in the Philly area and these idiots have been causing traffic jams since I can remember. And I just got notice that they've decided to tear up the road by my house between the hours of 9PM and 6AM for the next two weeks. PennDOT really does suck...assholes.
You give Mr. Struzzi too much credit - do you REALLY think he knows how to receive and reply to email? He and his whole bureaucracy are stuck in the 50's. I'm surprised that one of their minions made it onto this blog - though it's probably just a normal person trying to be contrary.
As for Mr. Anonymous - how much time and fuel do you think are wasted by the giant traffic jams that could be avoided? Frankly, I don't care about PennDot's time or their fuel - it's a drop in the bucket compared to how much the rest of us spend while idling in a traffic jam. As for anyone being narrow-minded - why don't you look at it from the perspective of those who pay your salary - PennDot sets up too many construction zones at a time with insufficient manpower to complete the work in a reasonable amount of time. Why not do one project, get it done, then move on? I've seen countless projects where the barrels go up, nothing happens for months, then there's a rush to get it done (most of the time with workers out at all hours) around a certain deadline. Don't give any explanation involving the setting time of concrete or any BS like that - the project gets done quickly when contractor incentives are on the line. Meanwhile you've cost people money (TIME is MONEY).
I hope their budget gets cut, the books come under heavier scrutiny to uncover the corruption and shady practices with contractors, and they put a businessman in charge to trim the fat (i.e., get rid of lazy whiners with no customer service skills like Anonymous above) who will put our money to good use.
I completely agree with "anonymous". PennDOT workers have much work on their plates already, they work 8 hour shifts everyday, they're on call whenever they are not working including saturday, sundays, & ALL HOLIDAYS for 12 hours those days. They HAVE to come in even when they are sick. Not to mention they are at risk with all the heavy equiptment, they also get hit by oncoming cars. So they have much more to worry about that what ignorant, uneducated people have to say about their work habits.
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