I-95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike non-interchange: Who the fuck is responsible for this, because I am going to beat that ass
Okay. The Pennsylvania/NJ Turnpike is one of the most important roads in the Northeast. So is Interstate 95. Here’s a looksie at them:
I needed to take I-95 to the Turnpike tonight. Have another looksie:
Yeah, that’s right: the motherfucking roads pass over one another! No exits! Who is responsible for this? What scum sucker at PDOT can I strangle for this? Unfuckingbelievable. The entire state of Pennsylvania should surrender its transportation budget to ME. I will gut the state of its disgusting infrastructure, rebuild the roads on a north/south/east/west gridline (no more of this Indian trails bullshit), and use the leftover money to tar-and-feather the former PDOT employees.
And by the way, I puttered around the Internet for a while and found some independent verification of what a shitshow the Pennsylvania roads are. Currently ranked second worst after Lousiana–it took a gargantuan goddamn natural disaster to knock the Keystone State off its perennial #1 perch. Oh, and here’s the “reason” the Turnpike and I-95 aren’t connected:
Originally, Pennsylvania wanted to route I-95 along the US 13 corridor, leaving the current one at Exit 40. New Jersey did not like this routing on the basis that it would overtax the four-lane Trenton Toll Bridge and Trenton Freeway. The states studied three alternatives for a crossing: Scudder Falls west of Trenton, the existing Trenton Toll Bridge, and Biles Island to the east of Trenton. The two states approved the Scudder Falls crossing in 1960 and the Bureau of Public Roads approved the new alignment of I-95 in 1964. This is why a direct connection between the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the Interstate was not constructed.
That made zero sense to me as well. On the “bright” side, they’re fixing this now and expect to be done in 2009 at a cost of $650 million, i.e. 2012 and $1 billion.
January 4th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Yeah, this always baffled me too. I did grad school in Philadelphia, and my wife grew up in the NE suburbs, so we made a few trips out the Penna Turnpike towards NJ.
In fact, there is no good way to get from central Philadelphia to points north (i.e. NYC) without getting lost on the streets of Camden or Cherry Hill. The signage has always been terrible, and every time I went it seemed like a different route.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:14 am
hahahahah classic stuff tom…all valid too
January 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am
You are right about the interchange thing. We live right near where the interchange SHOULD be!
By the way it is not “looksie. ” I believe you meant “look-see”. Maybe we should ask Bron to weigh in on this.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Tom, I think you should start a new blog, called “Beat That Ass”, a compendium of the asinine. Sort of like a bizarro version of Boing Boing “A Directory of Wonderful Things”.
heh.
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 am
Shit, anytime that I travel that outrageous turnpike in PA, I pay only a small fraction of the money for tolls… all you have to do is take your ticket… then find a service plaza or maintenance depot and exit in back of their fence. They usually leave the gate open. From here you can then find the nearest spot on the turnpike to grab a new ticket and of course discard the old one. My fav spot is atop the Tuscadora mountain… traveling from Michigan I pay only half the toll when I travel to see family back in Delaware. You can do this in Harrisburg, Pitts, and anywhere close to your destination. It’s fun to beat the system and I encourage you to do the same.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
3cb62fbda93f…
3cb62fbda93fe344152c…
June 13th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
That should read “route 1 corridor”.
Secondly, I-95 and the Turnpike don’t connect, not because of PDOT but because the federal government did not want to spent federal dollars connecting to a private pay road.