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Route 422 to get $4.8 million in upgrades
Friday, February 09, 2001
SHELOCTA, Pa. -- The 25 or so people gathered 100 feet from the side of Route 422 here yesterday morning had to strain sometimes to hear state Transportation Secretary Bradley Mallory.
He was using a loudspeaker. But that often was no match for the river of cars, tractor-trailers and coal-laden tri-axles roaring by.
For those who didn't hear every last part, this was Mallory's message: He was bearing a $4.8 million gift, promising to widen, resurface, level and add safety to four miles of the sometimes clogged highway between Indiana, Pa., and Shelocta.
"It's a high-accident area," state police Sgt. Michael Source said yesterday.
Across all of Indiana County, the stretch may tie an eight-mile, two-lane stretch of Route 119 from Homer City to Route 22 for the title of most troublesome, said Joseph Dubovi, assistant engineer for design at the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's Indiana-based District 10.
And planning has started on replacing that Route 119 link with a four-lane highway, probably by 2003.
Route 422 is the main link between Butler, Indiana and Ebensburg. The Indiana-Shelocta stretch, at the western edge of Indiana County, is a two-lane that carries an average 12,760 vehicles a day and logged 29 significant crashes in the past five years.
Mallory said the road needs a more substantial upgrade, but he said that's not in the plans or in PennDOT's bank account for the foreseeable future.
Instead, PennDOT's money will widen each of the 11-foot lanes by a foot; widen shoulders to 8 feet, up from as little as 2 feet; resurface the road and improve a handful of problem intersections.
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