Reps to take part in Turnpike query
HARRISBURG — Two state legislators representing Butler County are among lawmakers who will question members of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission over the stranding of as many as 500 vehicles in last weekend's snowstorm.
State Reps. Jeff Pyle, R-60th, and Jim Marshall, R-14th, both serve on the House Transportation Committee, which has scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 10.
Both legislators say they want to find out what went wrong and how commission officials intend to respond going forward.
“I want to see what the Turnpike (Commission) had in place before the incident, and what they will have in place now,” said Marshall, who chairs the House's transportation subcommittee on safety.
The hearing comes after hundreds of people were stranded for 24 hours or more along a hill approaching the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel. The backup starting about 8:30 p.m. Friday, after two tractor-trailers traveling side-by-side in a construction zone collided and a massive winter storm inundated some parts of the road with as much as two feet of snow.
Marshall said that area of the road is notorious for “issues” even in good weather, and he wants a full accounting of what restrictions were placed on drivers traveling through the area — though he added that people willing to travel at that time should have understood the risks involved.
No deaths or serious injuries have been reported as a result of the incident, which spread to include 16 miles of highway in Somerset and Bedford counties. A rescue effort involving hundreds of Turnpike workers, dozens of state employees and emergency crews backed by the National Guard stretched into Saturday evening.
“I think some responsibility is also on the (people) who would travel under those conditions,” Marshall said. “But it's unbelievable that people could be stranded for that length of time. I really want to hear from the Turnpike (Commission) on this.”
Pyle said he was amazed by the amount of snow the area received, and isn't sure what more could have been done to mitigate risk during the storm.
“I'm going into this with the thought that that section got nailed with a 36-inch snow(fall) in about an hour and a half,” Pyle said on Tuesday as lawmakers made their way back to Harrisburg. “I just drove through it, and I'll tell you, they got walloped.”The effects of the storm are still being felt. The commission was to shut down an 86-mile stretch of the Turnpike today to give workers more time to remove a tractor-trailer caught in the snow at mile marker 156 in Bedford County. The truck went over an embankment.The road's westbound lanes, from Breezewood to New Stanton, were to be closed for about three hours starting about 9 a.m.The House's public hearing will occur alongside an internal investigation Turnpike officials announced earlier this week. That will be a two-step process, with the first step — a review of the commission's decision-making process — expected to be complete within a week.The second step, which includes analyzing that information and recommending steps to improve the process, could take another two to four weeks, according to Turnpike spokesman Carl DeFabo.The House's Transportation Committee is made up of 26 legislators — 16 Republicans and 10 Democrats — and is headed by Rep. John Taylor, R-Philadelphia.
