Traffic roadsigns added to Schuylkill Expy
Monday, September 28th, 2009
By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org
Drivers using the Schuylkill Expressway, I-76, will begin getting traffic advisories from new roadside signs.
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Starting Wednesday, PennDot will begin posting travel times for the Schuylkill Expressway on 13 message signs. Gene Blaum is a PennDot Spokesman. He says the high tech system is designed to give people alternatives.
Blaum: There's not going to be any guesswork involved, you'll know as you are traveling it's going to take "x" number of minutes to travel between 476 and City Avenue. It relieves the mystery and lets motorists depending on where they are whether or not they want to travel the expressway or take an alternative route.
The system samples random EZ-Pass transponders to calculate how much time it takes to go from point to point. That's different from the 202 corridor, where sensors are on the side of the highway are used to calculate drive times.