Apr 22, 2015 3 min read

The predicted rain and colder weather this week has put a damper on plans to do some paving and concrete work at the diverging diamond interchange on Interstate 70 at Murtland Avenue in South Strabane Township.

“We had planned to do some work (Wednesday night) on the crossover but we had to cancel due to the weather,” Scott Faieta, assistant construction engineer for the state Department of Transportation, said. “We might do it later in the week or it may be next week.”

Drivers going through the diverging diamond interchange will cross over and switch lanes on Route 19 with traffic signals controlling the flow of traffic. Motorists can either pass through or get on I-70.

Excavation work is being done in the area of the former northbound lanes of Route 19. Stone has been put down and paving work will be started on a new ramp from Route 19 north to I-70 east, Faieta said during a Wednesday update on the project.

“The area is all graded,” Faieta said. “We had been putting down cement for the ramp, but the rain and cold is not helping. It looks like we will do that work next Tuesday or Wednesday.”

In spite of the weather, the project is still on schedule. Faieta said crews have been able to continue and are working six days a week. Work to repave the westbound lanes of I-70 between the Beau Street interchange and the north junction with Interstate 79 was completed last week.

State police are looking for the driver of a brownish-colored sedan going the wrong way on a ramp that struck a construction worker for Golden Triangle, the general contractor on the project, early Saturday. The driver apparently missed the first exit ramp from I-70 west and instead turned onto the on-ramp from Route 19 south to I-70 west at 12:05 a.m.

Faieta said the worker tried to stop the car from continuing and causing a crash. Police the car then struck the construction worker and continued on, with the worker on the hood. Police said the driver swerved abruptly from left to right and dislodged the worker before fleeing on Route 19 in an unknown direction.

The construction worker was able to tell police that the driver was black, in his mid 20s with dreadlocks. The worker was hospitalized for two days with head and ankle injuries, said Brian DeAngelis, PennDOT project manager. Surveillance cameras in the area are being reviewed, Faieta said. State police ask that anyone with information to call them at 724-223-5200.

State police Sgt. Robert Copechal, patrol section supervisor, said police are still responding to the occasional disabled motorist or crash in the construction zone.

“But the traffic pattern will be changing and it will get a little tighter,” Copechal said.

South Strabane police Chief Don Zofchak says that his department has not encountered any big problems with traffic other than a few issues with the traffic signals.

“Considering what they have been doing, it has been uneventful,” Zofchak said.

Work on the $54 million project started last fall and is to be completed by November 2017.