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