Motorists will see and feel the fallout from Pennsylvania’s roughest winter in several years through next summer.
State and local PennDOT officials say heavy winter maintenance costs will lead to a robust pothole season and cause at least a slight cutback on scheduled road maintenance work during the construction season. With the calendar still showing a month left in the official winter season, managers are hoping against hope for a change in the weather patterns that have produced many days with below-normal temperatures, small amounts of snow, freezing rain and heavy rain.
At a state House Appropriations Committee meeting last week, PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll said each maintenance district prepares a winter maintenance budget based on the average of spending in each of the state’s 67 counties for the previous five years. That tool didn’t work so well this season, he said.
“We’re past the budget for [almost] every county today,” Carrol said.
Those unexpected winter costs will mean local crews will have less money for maintenance projects in the summer, Carroll said. Major projects will be fine because they already have state and federal funds committed to them, but smaller projects such as landslides or repaving local roads owned by the state could be pushed back or done with a lower-grade material because of the financial drain.
Jason Zang, PennDOT’s district executive for Allegheny, Lawrence and Beaver counties, said District 11 has spent about $12 million so far on winter maintenance. That leaves about $600,000 for the rest of the season before it has to start using money earmarked for summer improvements.
“In District 11, we are almost right at our five-year rolling average,” Zang said. “The main point here is that money we spend on winter maintenance is money we can’t spend on road improvements.”
The main costs for winter maintenance are overtime — crews are scheduled to work Monday through Friday, and all weekend work is overtime — and road treatment material such as salt.
In Allegheny County, the agency has more than 70 workers who drive snowplows and spread salt or nonskid material. Another 15 private operators are under contract to PennDOT and can be called out if needed.
When snow is expected, crews are scheduled for 12-hour shifts from midnight to noon and noon to midnight. The biggest problem this year, Zang said, has been the way Mother Nature has delivered precipitation in small batches that require crews to work overtime many days in a row.
“The little storms eat up a lot of our hours and supplies,” Zang said. “Freezing rain really eats it up. A lot of salt gets washed off the road with freezing rain, and we have to go back and do it again.”
The district hasn’t had trouble getting salt, Zang said, but it already has used 28,000 tons more than last year at a cost of about $80 a ton, resulting in $2.2 million more spent so far this season compared to last season. Salt costs more than asphalt, which is about $65 a ton.
Statistics provided by Bill Modzelewski, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, support Zang’s notion of many small weather events.
The amount of snow from Dec. 1 through Thursday this season is close to the same, Modzelewski said. But this season, there has been measurable snow on 30 days, compared to 12 days last season.
“Just a little bit of snow every night means we have to be out there,” Zang said. “If your roads are wet when you leave for work in the morning, that probably means our guys were out there already.”
Zang said he has heard from maintenance workers that while the extra money has been nice, many of them are ready for winter to be over.
“Honestly, they’re over it,” he said. “They’re ready to get out of the trucks. It’s wearing on them. They’ve done an excellent job this winter, and they just keep doing it and doing it.
“A good weekend off would go a long way for them.”
Unfortunately, the same crews that operate the trucks in winter repair the potholes that the wet weather causes and do the smaller road improvements in the summer. Zang said potholes are plentiful already, but so far, the district is only looking at skipping or changing a couple of projects this summer because of winter costs.
Although statewide the rough winter means “challenges ahead” for PennDOT, Carroll said, he is not concerned.
“PennDOT meets those challenges. If it snows tonight, we will be out there.”
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.