Study: PA Turnpike Has Longest Stretch Of Highway Without An Exit
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - If you're heading west on a driving vacation, be aware: some of the longest stretches of interstate highway without exits are on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The navigation aid company TomTom used its database to measure distances between exits on the nation's highways and two of the longest stretches are in Western Pennsylvania -- 35 miles between Somerset and Bedford and 25 miles between Plainfield and Blue Mountain.
Turnpike commission spokesman Carl DeFebo says, there's just no reason to get off the road there, "Due to the geography, topography and population. If you look at a map and look at the transportation infrastructure there are not a whole lot of roads for us to connect to, there's not a whole lot of need for us to build interchanges between the existing exits."
And Defebo says the commission has studied the area thoroughly, "The turnpike commission does revisit areas where we need to add interchanges in between existing interchanges from time to time and we've not even entertained any in those areas that are mentioned in this study."
DeFebo says there doesn't even seem to be much of a need for pit stop facilities, since the rest stops at either end of those stretches are among the least used on the turnpike.
Reported by Pat Loeb, KYW Newsradio 1060
