If road is closed, residents would
have to drive 27 miles to go a mile!
With gasoline up to $3.35 a gallon, Liberty Township residents don't want to drive 27 miles to get from Port Allegany to the other end of the township, but PennDot thinks they should.PennDot was supposed to improve the Brooklynside Road so that traffic could go around the bridge construction to get back to Route 6 toward Smethport. They backed out of that plan.
And established a 17 mile detour on Route 6 to get the ten miles to Smethport. And that is fine for through traffic, it's only 7 miles out of the way. But Liberty Township residents would have to drive 27 miles to get to town instead of the two miles down Brooklynside Road.
And that has caused a dilemma for Liberty Township supervisors. The increased traffic on Brooklynside is destroying the road. The heavy traffic and the breakup of the frost we experience every spring, is causing cavernous holes to develop in the blacktop.
Supervisors don't want to close off the road, because it would mean a much delayed response time for police, fire and ambulance services to the Smethport side of the township. But the expense and time involved in trying to keep this road usable is taxing the resources of the Township.
Plus it would cost residents a fortune in gas and travel time to shopping, doctors, drug stores, restaurants, and schools, to close Brooklynside at Route 6 and make everyone go around.
Liberty Township road crews patched the holes with cold patch blacktop to start with, but the heavy traffic squshed it right out of the holes. Friday they were using crushed limestone to try to firm up the holes that were so deep as to ruin parts on your car as you tried to navigate it.
Even the shoulders of the road were turned into deep ruts as drivers used the shoulder to try to avoid the caverns. Residents have complained of speeding and large trucks using the road which is posted for ten tons total weight limit. Truckers should be aware there are stupendously large fines for being over the weight limit on this road.
PennDot needs to step up and maintain this road during the construction period, and rebuild it after the new bridges are done. Whats being done to Liberty Township residents and finances is criminal. The other township road work is not getting done because of this, and this Liberty Township road will be completely trashed before the new Route 6 bridges are done.
If you are driving to Smethport and points west, take the detour and save the wear and tear on Brooklynside.
Call or write State Representative Marty Causer and State Senator Joe Scarnati and ask them to make PennDot step in and take care of this situation.
Even if you're not from Liberty Township, call or write your legislators and back up this township that's getting it up the @$$.
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Anonymous said...
Liberty township officals need to look at comments left for them and wake up this road was in terrible condition long before bridge job started and you expect state to pay for it.do what is expected of a township to do to keep traffic moving this short length of road is a must for local people. now that bridges are under construction.closing road is like saying township just dont care do not want to be bothered . there saying its getting to there resourses what else would your crew being in this kind of weather the roads are to wet and muddy for any maintaince so what else do you have for the crew to do? i think there time would be well spent on spreading limestone and roll it in sure it would not last long but keep after it soon it will be a useable road. maybe your roadmaster should take a good look at this and get er done

looks like liberty township crew needs some adult supervision on this road work so this road can be kept open.
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Anonymous said...
do not wait for state to jump in and help you for your poor road maintance take care of the problem like you should have done when road first started going bad a couple of years ago.
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Anonymous said...
i dont think township is it getting up the @$$ i think township is trying to get in up the states @$$
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Anonymous said...
the state should have looked at this first they knew shutting the bridges down would cause issues and they did say they would fix this road for a bypass so maybe the state should get off their @$$ and get r done
WILL DO !
seems like the state back out on another one
as i said before fast eddies is looking for a retirement fund
getting his kick back from the gas
maybe they should say they are going to run a fruit stand on the brooklynn side and then they would get a 10,000 dolar grant from the state and fast eddie to promote the tourism and rt 6
Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:51:00 PM EDT
this is not as big a deal as township is making they just want some free road work done by the state . use your heads tailgate some limestone spread it with road grader run roller over it takes maybe 4 hours when it needs it again do the same no big deal. men shoveling coldpatch by hand is stupid and a waste of man power.so it will cost some money to do this to keep tax payers happy whose money is this tax payers or township officals use the money keep the people happy. if township officals can not get the job done they should resign and let some one else take over. quit acting stupid and get it done.
Sunday, March 16, 2008 3:02:00 PM EDT