Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026

I-80: You Asked and They Answered

Daily Weather · Thursday

68°High50°Low

Thursday starts with patchy fog until about 10 a.m., then turns sunny, with a high in the upper 60s and a low around 50. Give yourself a few extra minutes on the morning commute, and keep an eye on I-80 after dark (see above).

Friday is sunny and breezy, with a high in the mid 60s and gusts that could reach 30 mph, so hold on to your hat and your inflatable ghost. The overnight low drops to the mid to upper 30s. Halloween Saturday looks dry, with a high from the upper 50s to the low 60s and a low in the mid 30s.

Clocks fall back at 2 a.m. Sunday, which gives you an extra hour to forget about the candy, and Sunday itself is partly sunny with a high in the mid 60s.

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I-80 Night Work Now Has Hours, Exit 308 Shifts, and a Stop Order Is Sought

Illustration for the I-80 night work story, under the headline I-80: You Asked and They Answered

Monroe Unfiltered

The hours. PennDOT District 5 press officer Sean Brown told us by email yesterday that the overnight lane restrictions on I-80 in Stroud Township run from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., weekdays only, and are expected to last several weeks. That answers yesterday's headline, "I-80 Night Work: Still No Hours." As we reported Monday, the restrictions cover both directions between Exits 302 and 304, and the work began Monday, Oct. 26. PennDOT did not say whether "weekdays only" means Monday through Friday nights or Sunday through Thursday nights, so check 511PA before you head out. Kudos to PennDOT: they returned our email in 12 hours, which is about the fastest we’ve seen PennDOT do anything….ever.

New Exit 308 ramps are opening. On a much brighter note, PennDOT's District 5 traffic notice says eastbound I-80 traffic in East Stroudsburg was scheduled to move onto the newly built Exit 308 ramps starting yesterday (Wednesday, Oct. 28), and the new roundabout connecting the I-80 ramps, Prospect Street and Greentree Drive was set to open to traffic. FINALLY! Westbound traffic is scheduled to move to the newly rebuilt westbound lanes starting today, Thursday, Oct. 29. PennDOT tells drivers to use caution in the work zone during the transition, and WNEP reports the work in that area is set to wrap up in the summer. Which I guess means they need to free up the speed cameras a few exits down so they had to wrap up the work over there! Just kidding.

Not giving up the ghost. State Rep. Tarah Probst (D-189) and resident Lisa Wayland filed an emergency petition with the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board on Tuesday, Oct. 27, asking it to stop work on the first phase of the project in Stroud Township, according to the Pocono Record. Probst's office announced the filing Wednesday. Everything that follows is the petitioners' allegation. The petition asks the board to halt two permits the state Department of Environmental Protection issued to PennDOT on May 13, a water obstruction and encroachment permit and a pollutant discharge permit. Probst and Wayland appealed both on June 8 and 9, and say PennDOT began demolition and site clearing while those appeals are pending. The petition argues that continued work could create irreversible conditions before the board rules.

What they claim. The petition says the project was split into phases to avoid a full environmental impact study, that the permits would worsen flood risk along Pocono and McMichael creeks and overlook bald eagle nesting sites, and that the work threatens the Fort Hamilton site near Ann Street that we told you about on April 21 and again on Oct. 26.

PennDOT's answer. PennDOT has said it is in compliance with all federal and state laws for the project. The first phase is a $232.9 million contract with H&K Group, scheduled to wrap up in October 2032, part of a $935 million plan to rebuild I-80 from west of Exit 303 to the Brodhead Creek bridge between Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg.

What a stop order does, and does not do. A stop order asks the board to freeze the work while the permit appeals play out. Filing one does not stop anything by itself, and we have not seen a ruling. Probst's constituent services adviser, Jessica Smith, told the Pocono Record that Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr. is set to visit a local work site before a hearing scheduled for Monday, Nov. 16. Probst said Wednesday that PennDOT and the state need to "take a pause and go through the proper steps."

Politics, because of course. Probst is on the Nov. 3 ballot, where she faces Republican Danica Hartenfels. Expect both sides to claim this fight is about the environment, or about the election, depending on which side they are on. Meanwhile, the bulldozers do not vote.

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📋 the Daily Rundown

ESU Is Ranked and Hosts No. 3 Kutztown

East Stroudsburg University football is 7-1 overall and 4-0 in conference after beating Shepherd 31-7 on Saturday, Oct. 24, and the Warriors entered the American Football Coaches Association poll at No. 24. Their reward is a visit from No. 3 Kutztown on Saturday, Oct. 31, at 1:05 p.m. at Eiler-Martin Stadium. The Pocono Record reports it is ESU's first ranking since 2010, that the Warriors have not beaten Kutztown since 2013, and that coach Jimmy Terwilliger called the fanfare about the ranking "rat poison." On Halloween, the scariest thing in East Stroudsburg may be the Kutztown offense.

County Minutes: Water Tank, Home Repair Money and a Union Deal

The Monroe County Commissioners' Oct. 7 minutes, newly posted, show the board accepted Mid Atlantic Storage Systems' $1.8M proposal for a new water tank and its installation, bought through the state's COSTARS purchasing program. As we reported Oct. 8, it was only an agenda item then. The minutes do not say where the tank will go or what it serves. The board also authorized a $1.25M grant application for the new county wastewater treatment plant (an application, not an award), approved a 2026 to 2029 labor agreement with SEIU Local 668, and held the public hearing on $392K in federal Community Development Block Grant money for 2026: $321K to repair owner-occupied homes for low to moderate income households and $71K for administration, over three years. The hearing was held on behalf of East Stroudsburg Borough and Stroudsburg Borough.

The same minutes note that the Domestic Violence Awareness display on Courthouse Square has 865 pinwheels, one for each person Safe Monroe served from July 2025 to June 2026. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which ends Saturday, Oct. 31. Safe Monroe's free, confidential 24-hour hotline is 570-421-4200. The Oct. 21 agenda also listed $193,800 in opioid settlement grants and a contract with Recovery Revolution for jail drug, alcohol and counseling services, but minutes for that meeting are not posted yet, so we cannot tell you what the board decided.

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🗳️ PSA

On Tuesday, Nov. 3, please do vote…we all really deserve better than this.

Also in today’s Buzz

Keystone State Shenanigans58 Bills, One Signing Day

Gov. Josh Shapiro signed 58 bills into law on Thursday, Oct. 22, 30 House bills and 28 Senate bills, according to the governor's office. Sen. Rosemary Brown (R-40), whose district includes Monroe County, is a cosponsor of at least two of them. Senate Bill 1212, now Act 106, changes how the state's rape kit tracking law defines kits "awaiting testing," a fix its sponsor, Sen. Tracy Pennycuick, said was needed because local discretion had led to inconsistent practices. Senate Bill 416, now Act 94, lets licensed groups such as fire companies, churches and veterans organizations take card and mobile payments, including through services like Venmo, for raffle tickets. Great to see the rape kit bill passing, but why is it they have time to resolve raffle ticket payments but seem befuddled when it comes to resolving the skill games issue for all our small businesses that have come to rely on them.

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Keystone State ShenanigansBut wait…there’s (four) more

House Bill 558, now Act 67, limits what landlords can charge for a rental application to the actual cost of processing it. Senate Bill 806, now Act 99, requires advertisers to clearly label AI-generated content that could mislead consumers about products or services, starting Dec. 21, according to Axios. Violators could face civil fines of up to $3,000 plus court costs. Satire, parody, commentary and political ads are excluded. Senate Bill 804, now Act 98, bans PFAS firefighting foam: manufacture and sale end in July 2027 and use ends in January 2028, with exceptions for airports, chemical plants and certain other facilities. Any Monroe County fire company still using the old foam has until January 2028 to switch. Maybe those Venmo payments for raffle tickets can help fund the replacement. The law also phases out the plastic additive DEHP in IV bags starting in 2030 and IV tubing in 2035, with some exceptions. And a separate law, also effective Dec. 21, directs the state to recommend tougher sentencing guidelines for "swatting" hoax threats against schools and colleges, and lets courts order offenders to reimburse emergency response costs (because those morons swatting schools and colleges are clearly sitting on big savings accounts).

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Keystone State ShenanigansAnd the phone ban has a number

Senate Bill 1014, the school cellphone ban we told you about yesterday, is now Act 117 of 2026. Shapiro signed it Monday, Oct. 26, and schools must have policies in place by the 2027-28 school year.