There’s a parable from India about a group of blind men trying to describe an elephant by touch: the task is too big until they cooperate and share the information at their individual fingertips.

It’s a good metaphor for the heavily traveled State Route 68 Between Butler and Evans City. The highway represents many things to many drivers, depending on the sections and times of day that they drive. It also demonstrates the need for a collaborative approach to address an assortment of related problems.

Route 68 cuts diagonally across Butler County from Zelienople in the southwest to Chicora in the northeast and beyond. Originally a trail blazed by native tribes, it predates the arrival of Butler County’s first white settlers in 1796, according to a county history published in 1883.

The problem is that some of the highway still drives like a centuries-old native trail. It needs upgrades to handle an ever-growing traffic flow.

Many of us drive sections of Route 68 every week, if not every day. Our individual experiences add up to a wide variety of opinions about its most severe shortcomings and hazards.

There’s no question about the need for improvements. But limited funding makes repairs a question of priority. Establishing priorities is difficult in a government climate that encourages competition for funding among the municipalities and school districts along the route.

The task of collaboration has fallen to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, the 10-county consortium that oversees the region’s transportation network. The SPC last week completed an intensive assessment of Route 68 from Evans City to Butler to identify dangerous areas, suggest improvements and receive input from local leaders. PennDOT District 10 requested the assessment, which includes safety ratings based on the frequency and severity of accidents along the route.

It’s hard to get a consensus of the route’s priorities for repairs and upgrades:

• In Evans City, 68 is Main Street — both lifeblood and bottleneck, particularly at the start and close of each school day.

• From Butler to Connoquenessing, it’s a business district lined with retail stores, factories and other attractions. Traffic jolts along with frustrating starts and stops.

• Its entire length accommodates school buses, semi trucks and Marcellus Shale drilling vehicles — any of which could be approaching from the next blind curve or hilltop, or stopped and waiting to make a left-hand turn.

Several suggestions were submitted at the SPC meeting last week. Suggestions included minor projects — replacing faded road signs and out-of-date traffic signals; adding left turning lanes at intersections; changing the placement of a traffic light to improve traffic flow.

All the suggestions point to the bigger picture: Route 68 is outmoded and heavily traveled. It needs an upgrade.

The unfortunate truth is that upgrades take money, and committing money could take some time and patience. As Butler County Commissioner Dale Pinkerton suggested, “Nothing happens overnight,” but “the ideas SPC brings to the whole thing, it makes it go faster.”

Highway maintenance is a big-picture game, won by those who can present a bigger picture. All the municipalities and school districts along the route should keep this in mind as they push the project closer to the top of PennDOT’s priority list.