Wrong-way detection systems continue to go up on Route 28
Work continues to eliminate wrong-way crashes on Route 28.
Several interchanges on the road have a history of confusing drivers, leading to them getting on the wrong side of the road. The idea is to bombard drivers with signage to let them know they are going the wrong way.
In all, exits from Harmar to the North Side will be getting this done, which is 21 exits. So far, crews have finished from Harmar to Delafield Avenue.
The basic rule of the road applies: If you see red, you're probably in the wrong.
"There's a lot of red flashing lights. The intent is to get your attention and hopefully prevent you from continuing that way," PennDOT District 11 Assistant Construction Engineer Steve Sneddon said.
Of the exits with the new equipment, they have been tested, and all but one are online. One had some equipment that needed to be replaced as it was not working correctly. The testing included driving cars on a closed ramp the wrong way to make sure it detected the issue.
If someone is driving the wrong way, the lights flash at the driver, and PennDOT gets an alert.
"They then confirm that we indeed have a wrong-way driver, and they can take action from there," Sneddon said.
Right now, PennDOT does not have the message boards online to alert drivers of a wrong-way driver getting on the highway. The plan is to bring those into the fold soon.
"We hope to have that integrated soon so that when the traffic management center is notified," Sneddon said, "that they would then manually trigger an event on the message boards based on where the wrong-way driver has entered."
The $4.8 million project is expected to be done by next spring. PennDOT does not have a ton of data yet on how well this is working, but it has seen that the system's sensitivity has picked up stalled cars on the shoulder if they go into reverse.
According to PennDOT, this is a first-of-its-kind system in our area. It's planned to be used on other future projects.