Posted on 03/01/2021 8:41:48 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A local citizens group has formed a Facebook page urging New Jersey transportation officials to improve a stretch of Interstate 80 they say will become unsafe once construction begins on a $50 million fence project.
I80DWG Coalition says the stretch of the highway through the Delaware Water Gap, where the four-lane highway is squeezed between a 1,526-foot-high cliff at its peak and a river, is too tight for traffic congestion during any type of construction and especially, once work commences on a fence designed to prevent rockfall on the winding highway. Tractor trailers, the group says, will become wedged between concrete barriers because the 1.5-mile S-curved portion of the highway in Hardwick and Knowlton townships is not wide enough.
The state Department of Transportation says that stretch of I-80 -- beginning at the Delaware Water Gap Bridge and snaking along the Delaware River as it cuts through Mount Tammany on the New Jersey side and Mount Minsi on the Pennsylvania side -- has the highest risk of rockfall of anywhere on New Jersey’s highways. Rockfalls and related events have closed the highway three times in the last 15 years. Between 2001 and 2017, there were 11 rockfalls that caused 14 accidents, one of which was fatal.
The DOT proposed the fence with a price tag of at least $50 million in early 2018. A DOT schedule anticipates construction to begin in 2023 and take three years to complete.
The fence/pyramid construction does nothing to straighten the S-curve, and that is the problem area, claim local residents and elected officials. Tara Mezzanotte, of Knowlton Township, who is an administrator of the coalition’s Facebook page and responsible in putting the group’s project online, called the plan Monday a “total nightmare.”
(Excerpt) Read more at lehighvalleylive.com ...
Stop construction immediately. Fences are racist.
Double deck the highway. Elevate the westbound lanes.
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