PITTSTON TWP. - Nearly $4.5 million in federal funds earmarked for extending the deceleration lanes at two exits along Interstate 81 has been recommitted to a paving project that spans six miles along the interstate.
At Tuesday's Focus 81 committee meeting, state Department of Transportation District Engineer George Roberts said the estimated $4.4 million earmarked for extending the deceleration lanes at the Drinker Street (Exit 186) and Blackman Street (Exit 165B) will no longer go toward the project.
Instead, he said, it will go toward an estimated $6 million "mill and fill" project that will renovate a six-mile stretch of I-81 - from mile marker 179 to 185 - both northbound and southbound. That section of the highway hasn't been repaved since 2003, and has as many as three segment miles that are defined as "poor," Mr. Roberts said.
Contractors, when conducting a "mill and fill," remove the top two inches of the existing pavement through a process called cold milling. Then, they replace it with two inches of fresh pavement.
Construction is expected to start in April and last two to three months. Mr. Roberts said residents shouldn't expect delays as all of the road work will be completed at night.
"The funds were aging, and under the executive order issued by the president, they needed to be identified by Oct. 31 and obligated by Dec. 31," said Mr. Roberts, who said he didn't know what year Congress earmarked the funds. "We knew we couldn't meet that time line with the extension project, so we took the earmarked dollars and stuck them on existing regional projects.
"It works out because it's been 10 years since we last paved that section. That's about how often you should resurface a highway that's traveled as often as this one."
According to Mr. Roberts, the committee is able to use the funds for the paving project because it can be classified as a "safety improvement" along the interstate.
The funds, he said, were originally earmarked for any safety improvement along I-81, such as widening the lanes or resurfacing the highway. Only later did the committee determine they would use the earmarked funds toward extending the two deceleration lanes.
"Though we can't get two deceleration lanes now, it's something we still plan to add within the next couple of years," Vice President at Northeastern Pennsylvania Alliance Alan Baranski said. "Right now, we just needed to make sure those funds wouldn't go to waste."
PennDOT officials will look at different sources of funding to cover the remaining $1.6 million, Mr. Roberts said. Once they secure the additional funding, PennDOT will advertise the project.
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