Drivin' and Cryin'

“Pennsylvania's just this state that's in your way when you want to get somewhere else.”
-The House of Yes

A quick complaint to anyone listening: What the heck is up with the Pennsylvania Interstate Highway system? So Sage and I are driving up to Elk Country (blog to come!), and looking at the map I notice I have to take I-70 West to I-76 West (Penn. Turnpike) to I-99 North. Easy enough. So we come to then “end” of I-70, where I assume there will be some high-speed on and off ramps to the other highway. You know, like EVERY OTHER HIGHWAY IN THE COUNTRY. Ha ha – the joke’s on me. I-70 ends. Yep, just ends. It basically pulls into a small town and they put stoplights at the end of it. Thankfully there’s a sign that says “I-76 à”. So we turn right, drive by 2 gas stations and maybe a Pizza Hut…and immediately turn onto an on-ramp for I-76!

Alright—so that was annoying, but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it. Maybe building the on-ramp directly from the highway would have gone through a wildfowl nesting site or something. At the time of day we went through, we only had about 10 vehicles stacked in front of us at the light, and only 1 of them was a big truck, so the delay wasn’t bad. But I can see that getting REALLY backed up during high traffic times.

So I’m on I-76 for about 12 miles or so. The exit for I-99 comes up, and obviously we have to go thru the toll for the Turnpike. And of course I assume that after the toll there will be an on-ramp for I-99. The joke’s on me again! The highway ends at another stoplight. One must turn left, drive about ¼ mile, and then turn onto I-99. Again, if there was any sort of traffic, we might still be sitting next to the Blimpie and Gulf station. Fool me once…shame on…shame…ah, whatever.

So let’s see here…they make me slow down, stop at stop-lights, get stuck behind numerous tractor trailers and cars, all so they can force me to drive by a couple of gas stations. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than creating convenient and fast on- and off-ramps from highway to highway.

And another thing about Pennsylvania highways: there is ALWAYS construction. ALWAYS. And it’s never a small little construction project, like adding a guardrail. It is always repaving all 4 lanes at once, or putting in a new bridge that will take 10 years. I can’t remember a time my entire life, whether it was driving up to my grandmother’s house when I was kid, or driving up to New Hampshire present day, that there wasn’t some stretch of highway in Pennsylvania that went down to 1 lane for about 10 miles.
I’m only going to say this once: Pennsylvania, your highways suck. They always have and they always will.