Free Republic

A naked woman in California got out of her car on one of the nation’s busiest bridges and began firing a gun Tuesday. The bizarre scene unfolded during rush hour on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, according to the California Highway Patrol. A driver called 911 to report that another driver had brandished a gun at them on the I-80 span, which crosses the San Francisco Bay, around 4:40 p.m., police said. The woman then stopped in the middle of her lane, got out of her car with a knife and began yelling at other drivers, according to cops. She...

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) recently released a list of some of the agency's most impactful road and bridge construction projects to drivers for 2021. UDOT will be working on 185 projects across the state in 2021, with a value of $3.45 billion over the life of the projects, many of which span multiple years. Planned improvements range from repaving rural highways and building freeway-style interchanges to widening and repaving interstates and demolishing and rebuilding bridges. The traffic delays from these projects range from overnight lane restrictions to full road closures with major detours. “These projects are an essential...

Feb. 26—Carbon County commissioners aren't keen on a plan to toll bridges along Interstate 80 to fund construction projects. Commissioner Chris Lukasevich on Thursday said Pennsylvania residents already pay the highest gas tax in the United States, and feels that state should better use existing funds. Commissioners Wayne Nothstein and Rocky Ahner also question the move, which would allow tolls on the Interstate 80 bridges over the Lehigh River at the Carbon-Luzerne county line for up to 30 years. Ahner worried about the average commuter, who has to pay the toll each way to go to work every day. "It...

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...

The Great Bend-Hallstead exit (230) off Interstate 81 in Susquehanna County is due for repair in the next few years and PennDOT has proposed installing an electronic toll, that would use E-ZPass or pay-by-plate collection for drivers who pass through the area. The funds collected would be used to pay for the construction, maintenance, and operation of that bridge. We spoke with several people who use this section of highway about the proposed idea. "I guess to raise taxes to everybody is really hard, so I guess for the people using the road, then maybe that's a good idea," said...

Will County billboards that warned motorists about bridges stoked public-safety fears and helped convince state lawmakers of the need to approve a $45 billion infrastructure plan. The billboards and their impact arguably deserve to rank among the top political stories of the year, if not the decade. Construction unions paid to display the messages “Cross bridge at your own risk” and “Bridge ahead in critical condition” on electronic billboards near Interstate 80 bridges over the Des Plaines River in Joliet. The billboards heightened motorists’ fears about crumbling infrastructure and generated bipartisan support for the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program. Marc...

Suspected ISIS propaganda was found in Central Nebraska not far from the small town of Elm Creek. Somewhere along an Eastbound off-ramp on I-80 and Hwy 183, a computer disc was found along with literature that appeared to be ISIS propaganda. “There’s a lot of vehicle traffic in that location,” said Captain Bob Anderson with Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office. The disc was found by a man Thursday afternoon sometime between 3 p.m. and 4:18 p.m. […] According to the Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office, the disc was logged into evidence and forwarded to the FBI. …

TOLEDO (13abc Action News) - Self-driving cars are getting closer to becoming a reality in America. Testing is underway in a few places around the country and if you travel the Ohio Turnpike, you'll soon be sharing the road with them. We spoke with drivers and the head of the Ohio Turnpike Commission about the testing. The autonomous vehicles could be on the turnpike by the end of the year. The Ohio Turnpike will be turned into a test track of sorts for the emerging technology. Randy Cole is the Executive Director of the Turnpike Commission, "It's 241 miles of...

LARAMIE, Wyo. – Trucks and cars piled into one another Monday in dense fog on Interstate 80 in southeast Wyoming, resulting in a fiery chain-reaction crash that killed one person, injured 16 and sent up a column of thick black smoke. The crash in a rural area 18 miles west of Laramie occurred four days after several pileups during a blinding snowstorm closed the busy interstate for two days.

Travel information for Interstate 80 is as follows: Last update at: Mar 03, 2015 06:06 am...Road Closed Due To Winter Conditions...All travelers are encouraged to check present conditions and forecasts before departing. Cameras [Be sure to see the Webcams for the "Road Closed Due To Winter Conditions" locales.

A Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman calls it a "fork in the road," but it might be a giant financial pothole that PennDOT is approaching. The turnpike yesterday transferred $225 million to the state for highway projects and public transit, the first of four payments scheduled for the fiscal year under Act 44, the transportation funding law enacted in 2007. The $900 million in annual payments will shrink to $450 million in the fiscal year that starts next July if the state fails to win federal approval to impose tolls on Interstate 80, or come up with some other revenue source. That...

Congressman John Peterson praises decision. HARRISBURG - Federal regulators on Thursday rejected Pennsylvania's plan to impose tolls on Interstate 80, reigniting a sticky debate over where to find billions of dollars to fix roads, repair bridges and subsidize mass transit systems. Congressman John Peterson (R-5th) of Pleasantville, a leading opponent of the I-80 tolls, praised the decision and said "the 'closed for business' sign has been removed from Pennsylvania." "I'm excited for Pennsylvania...it's a good day for the economy of Pennsylvania," Peterson said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Derrick and The News-Herald. Gov. Ed Rendell urged lawmakers to...

Commission approves financing plan for toll lanes on Highway 101, other Bay Area freeways A Bay Area transportation commission took a step today toward creating an 800-mile network of toll lanes on parts of Highway 101 and other local freeways for car pools and drivers who pay a toll. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved a 25-year financing plan that allocates $6.1 billion for the lanes. Transportation planners say the money for the project will come from the tolls collected from motorists who use the lanes. The commission also approved a set of principles for developing the network. The profits from...

800 miles of toll lanes on Highway 101, other Bay Area freeways proposed A Bay Area transportation commission is proposing the creation of a $3.7 billion, 800-mile-long network of mixed-use carpool and toll lanes on more than 12 freeways in a big new attempt to ease chronic traffic congestion. Called High Occupancy Toll or HOT lanes because they are free to car poolers in rush hour and open to other vehicles for a toll, the network of express lanes would be developed over the next 25 years by a group county, regional and state transportation agencies. The lanes would be...

U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, has introduced the Toll Road Prohibition Act, the latest bill designed to prevent tolling on federally built highways. HR 3802, introduced Oct. 10, would require states and cities to repay the U.S. government all federal funds used for construction of highways, bridges or tunnels, along with “reasonable interest,” before introducing tolls. “The American people should not be required to pay for the same highway twice, once through their tax dollars and again through new tolls on federal interstate highways,” Boswell said. The legislation would not prohibit the states from entering into public-private toll agreements, but...

The plan to convert the 311-mile-long Interstate-80 into a toll road is part of Act 44 in Pennsylvania. Overall, the legislation generates a huge amount of money to accomplish a wide range of bridge and road improvements, including those on Pennsylvania's interstates, the turnpike and secondary highways. Those projects will be funded with borrowed money that will be repaid by tolls on I-80 and the turnpike. Tolls on the 530-mile long turnpike will be increased by 25 percent in 2009 and 3 percent each successive year. The same tolls charged on the turnpike will be charged on I-80. Specifically, Act...

WASHINGTON - A new Texas road being planned to accommodate truck traffic between the United States and Mexico has riled Ohio members of Congress who fear it's the first phase of a "NAFTA Superhighway" that would be used to funnel cheap imports to the Midwest as it links Mexico, the United States and Canada. Texas and federal highway officials deny that a proposed North-South toll road running parallel to Inter-state 35 is part of a planned international superhighway, and say there are no plans for a transcontinental road. They insist the new thoroughfare would merely handle some of the extra...

Two people were killed and five injured Wednesday in a one-vehicle accident on eastbound Interstate 80 near Gretna. Authorities said the vehicle involved was a state van, possibly with disabled veterans inside. The van was from Thomas Fitzgerald Veterans Home in Omaha. The passengers had been in Lincoln to see two vintage bombers, a B-17G Flying Fortress and a B-24J Liberator, on display at the Lincoln Airport. Three were ejected from the van and others were pinned inside. A rear section of the van was nearly sheared off. The accident occurred about 11:30 a.m. in the eastbound lanes of I-80,...

Several grass fires have been reported along Highway 61 and Interstate 80 from Clinton to Davenport. Be aware of some traffic trouble spots along these two major roadways, as police are blocking one lane of traffic to get the area fire departments to the area of concerns. We will continue to update this story and have the latest for you on the KWQC-TV6 News at 5pm.

DEAR ABBY: Last April, my nephew, "Frank," a first lieutenant in the Army, was on the third day of a road trip from Fort Campbell, Ky., to Seattle to deliver his pickup truck to his parents' home for storage during his second tour of duty in Iraq. He was on I-80 near Cheyenne, Wyo., in a snowstorm when his truck skidded on an icy patch, collided with a big rig, rolled over multiple times and landed off the roadway in the snow. Frank had multiple deep lacerations to his head, legs and feet, crushed bones in one foot and back,...