Governor announces $180 million remedy for road hazards

The need for more money to fix state roads is obvious to any driver who has dodged potholes left after this year’s harsh winter, Gov. Tom Wolf said Friday.

Mr. Wolf’s tour of roads Friday morning brought him to West Carson Street on Pittsburgh’s South Side to highlight more than $180 million the state has added to this year’s budget for road repairs.

The Department of Transportation has an extra $22.3 million to make pothole repairs through the end of June, plus an additional $158 million to move ahead early with resurfacing projects on interstate highway projects that weren’t scheduled for several years.

In this area, the big addition is the Parkway East, where the state has allocated about $26

million for repaving between the Fort Pitt Bridge and the Edgewood-Swissvale exit. That project, which was announced in March, wasn’t expected to move forward for four more years, but now should begin by the end of June.

Mr. Wolf, who has visited several sites across the state since his office announced the “Resurface PA” initiative May 24, said about a third of the money came from PennDOT receiving lowerthan-expected bids on other highway projects, and the rest was cobbled together froma variety of sources.

“It wasn’t the snow that was the problem this year. It was the thaw-freeze, thawfreeze, thaw-freeze,” the governor said. “We worked to find that $182 million. It’s new money. That $182 million is going to fix potholes like this.”

With that, Mr. Wolf grabbed a shovel and joined with local PennDOT workers to plop hot-patch material into a hole that had been squared off and prepared for filling.

Here’s an example of how much worse potholes have been this year: PennDOT district executive Cheryl Moon-Sirianni said her workers have used about 5,000 tons of patching material so far in Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties. They used 1,300 tons all of last year.

Across the state, the extra money will allow 17 interstate projects covering about 255 miles to begin this year, at least two years earlier than expected. That’s in addition to 85 other interstate projects covering about 775 miles underway or expected to begin this year.

The state urged motorists to report road problems at 1800-FIX-ROAD (349-7623) or http://customercare.penndot. .

Andrew Stein/Post-Gazette Gov. Tom Wolf speaks about an expanded pothole repair initiative on Friday on the South Side. After he was done speaking, Mr. Wolf helped patch a pothole on West Carson Street.