Construction in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, creating nightmarish rush hours for drivers
It's 6 p.m. on a weeknight. Drivers will tell you the backup to exit the Blue Route at West Chester Pike for Upper Darby and Newtown Square is a bad rerun. Taillights are visible around a long bend of the road, for as far as the eye can see.
"I wanted to drive to Havertown, and it would take me 15, 20 minutes more than it used to," Nathan Glazer said on his way into a nearby supermarket.
It's hard to find someone unfamiliar with the nagging work that has created logjams and nightmarish rush hours since work began back in the fall.
PennDOT is in the middle of what it calls an "intersection improvement project." Two turning lanes in the area have been shut down for months. Frustrated viewers reached out to CBS News Philadelphia about the major traffic jams, which we saw ourselves. People like Nancy Bove of Havertown said the lane closures cost her time.
"Yeah, especially when you're in a hurry, and you only have five minutes to get from one place to the other," she said.
Helen Reinbrecht, the community relations coordinator of PennDOT, said in a Zoom interview that the work is on schedule.
"Physical work is anticipated to be completed at the end of this year," Reinbrecht said. "Hopefully, that will clear up a lot of the lane restrictions, road closures, and backups your viewers were talking about."
"We, too, are frustrated with traffic congestion in the area," Larry Gentile said.
Gentile, the Marple Township manager, has received some of the same phone calls CBS News Philadelphia has gotten. He said the project has been a long time coming for an area no stranger to extreme congestion.
"Once this is finally done, we believe there will be a significant improvement for traffic east and west on West Chester Pike," he said.
Eventually, there will be dedicated turn lanes to get on the northbound Blue Route from the pike traveling west, as well as Lawrence Road turning east onto West Chester Pike.
"They won't be subjected to the traffic light any more, so it's a freer flow of traffic," Reinbrecht said.
Until then, the message is drive with patience.
"It'll be nice when it's finished, but getting there is a real pain," Bove said.
PennDOT said the project is within its $5 million budget.