PennDOT close to bidding out safety upgrades at infamous intersection
SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Some progress is being made by the township and the state Department of Transportation to address safety concerns at the intersection of Route 8 and Branchton Road.
The township supervisors and PennDOT have discussed installing an Intersection Conflict Warning System, which may prevent crashes at the intersection.
“They’re going to make it bigger, is my understanding,” said supervisor Terry Doerr. “They're going to make the light more pronounced ... put in bigger poles and a bigger light.”
The next step, according to Doerr, is for PennDOT to put the project up for bid.
“At this point, PennDOT will be bidding the specs out for this particular project,” Doerr said. “It depends on what PennDOT gets into ... whether they approve the plan, and they have the money to fund it. It’s in PennDOT’s hands right now.”
The intersection has a history of crashes, some with fatal results. The most deadly occurred in July 2003, when an entire family of five from North Carolina was killed while visiting relatives in Pennsylvania. The family’s car, traveling northbound on Route 8, was hit by a trucker who ran a stop sign while traveling westbound on Branchton Road.
The following year, PennDOT put a flashing yellow light in place over the intersection to reduce the danger of similar crashes happening again. However, crashes continued to happen.
In September 2011, a student at nearby Slippery Rock University was killed, and another injured, in a collision between a tractor-trailer and an SUV carrying six students.
In September 2022, a collision between a motorcycle and an SUV led to the deaths of the motorcycle’s rider and passenger. This led to renewed scrutiny of the intersection. In the months following the accident, the board of supervisors commissioned a traffic study from PennDOT, which eventually determined there was no need for a speed limit reduction in the area.
Despite the intersection’s history of crashes, the board of supervisors reiterated that a full-on traffic signal is not in the cards, at least not in the immediate future.
“It may be 20-30 years, but not at this point,” Doerr said. “It’s still going to be a flashing beacon.”
According to minutes from a board meeting from November 2023, the estimated time of completion for the project is early 2025 if all goes to plan. However, Doerr is not ready to set any time frame just yet.
“To obligate ourselves to a date, that’s just hard to do,” said Doerr. “That’s a shot in the dark.”
