Essay: On the PennDOT Patchwork
(2022) Per online sources, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, bears the highest tax burden in the commonwealth. Year 2020 information ranks Bucks County in the highest income tax, highest sales tax, highest property tax, and highest fuel tax. Yet any cyclist or motorist can feel when they enter Bucks County. One feels it by taking the roads.
There have been numerous trips in the team car to the Valley Preferred Cycling Center in Lehigh County. Before entering Lehigh, our route is sent through Northampton County. This is known because of a little white and blue sign announcing the crossover. But that sign isn’t necessary because the moment one passes that sign, immediately the ride becomes silent- the pavement is flat and devoid of damage. Coming back into Bucks County requires team car operators and cyclists to tune the eye to visible craters and invisible potholes camouflaged by shadows. The county with the highest taxes has the worst roads. It is only getting worse.
Years ago on creakybottombracket.com, we posted an article highlighting a man named Gifford Pinchot who swore Pennsylvania farmers were suffering because of unpaved roads. (This was during the Great Depression, no coincidence, I’m sure.) The plan became too ambitious and Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation took charge of more roads and almost any other state in terms of mileage. Even today random roads are marked with a tiny “SR” - meaning State Road - bewildering common sense as to why the state doesn’t turn maintenance over to townships. Pinchot’s reasoning was laughable, but PennDOT’s new approach to road repair is sickening.
Several years ago, a trend was emerging on major and secondary roads of Bucks County. Right sides of roads were crumbling but the middle portion seemed to evade damage. Instead of fixing the road, PennDOT decided to execute the equivalent of duct taping a problem- they only paved the right side of the road. At first roadway users were satisfied thinking the paving crews would return to polish off the road, but no. The road appeared to be chalked up as “fixed” and that was the last of it. Imagine the surprise when the right side of the road started crumbling again.
The view of Kellers Church Road’s different roadways from Deep Run Mennonite Church parking lot. PennDOT paved on and off portions of this road.
If that sounds like a Friday afternoon effort, PennDOT has outdone itself on some of the major cycling thoroughfares near our office. To exacerbate PennDOT’s struggles to solve road issues, they decided to repave the right-hand side of both directions of Wismer Road between Point Pleasant Pike and Stump Road. But they didn’t stop there. They then laid another strip of asphalt, totalling four strips. This leaves one to wonder where this scene has appeared before. The answer is bacon. The paving strips look like bacon, wiggles and all, laid in a skillet side-by-side. What isn’t in the pan are the inches-deep potholes that hover near the yellow line that apparently weren’t severe enough to fix. Hey if you tear a tire, that sales tax could go toward fixing the road which will never happen.
But lately PennDOT has delivered its most awful solution to date. Escaping any sound person’s explanation, PennDOT now approaches a road by tearing up sections, leaving others, and repaving random distances. For example, Stump Road between 611 and 313, Deep Run Road, Kellers Church Road, and many others could have five-foot patches of new asphalt, 100 feet of pock-marked skipped asphalt, then a quarter-mile of resurfaced road. That’s right, who knows why they skipped the 100 feet but they did. Near our offices, there are multiple 30-foot squares of old surface surrounded by new asphalt, complete with craters and potholes that must have been deemed “acceptable” to PennDOT. What’s worse is the older roads have not been revisited in PennDOT fashion to seal or bevel.
Though we strive to promote positivity in the Bucks County cycling scene, there is something dangerous about riding unpredictable surfaces that are safe a few feet, suddenly requiring swerving away from the white line for extra feet, and then uncertainty after that. The road may be smooth to cars, but for those who ride these roads regularly, this is an absolute problem. There is positivity in calling for oversight for an entity whose winter solution to plowing is waiting until later.
In the meantime, be alert when riding roads in northern Bucks County, especially when leaving county. The neighboring roads will become so inviting you’ll consider calling the team car to come get you. Then again, with gas at $5.00 a gallon, it’s a questionable call, just like the unsolved mystery as to where that gas tax is going.
Source:
Cassie Miller, P. C.-S. A. 27. (2020, April 27). Which Pa. counties have the lowest tax burden?: The numbers racket - pennsylvania capital. Star. Retrieved June 8, 2022, from https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/which-pa-counties-have-the-lowest-tax-burden-the-numbers-racket/
