PennDOT Closes Bunola River Road After Drivers Run Temporary Red Lights Set Up Around Landslides

ELIZABETH, Pa. (KDKA) - PennDOT says the risk has become too great so it is closing Bunola River Road near a landslide.

But it's not the landslide causing the closure: it's drivers running the temporary red lights set up to allow alternating traffic on the lane not impacted by the landslide.

Randy Biem says he has seen it first hand: "They do run the light. I don't know how many times when I'm going down the road, someone's coming up and they're running it."

From the traffic signals at either end, you cannot see whether someone is at the other traffic signal or coming towards you.

PennDOT District 11 Executive Cheryl Moon-Sirianni says, "We've had multiple instances of that happening, people reporting it, police reporting it and we just can't allow that to continue. You could have a head-on collision when people do that."

So on Friday morning Moon-Sirianni says, "We're just going to have to close the road down and detour it. It's the safest thing. We can't take the chance of someone crashing into a head-on collision out there."

The detour route is a winding eight miles, which worries Biem who also drives an ambulance.

"It's going to lengthen the time to get an ambulance to someone's house by maybe 15 minutes," he says.

First responders will meet with PennDOT Thursday to see if there is a way to give first responders only access to the slide zone.

Local drivers aren't happy and claim malfunctioning of the lights is an issue when the solar power lights lose power and start blinking.

PennDOT says the blinking isn't due to a loss of power but is what happens when someone runs a red light. Once the blinking starts, it has to be manually reset.

Bunola River Road isn't the only place PennDOT has been seeing drivers run the lights around slide zones.

They are watching closely Route 48/Scenery Drive where they've gotten numerous complaints of the lights being run. Moon-Sirianni says drivers have been complaining of 20 minute wait times, so they timed the lights.

"Three minutes to four minutes was the most that someone waited. But that seems to be too much time for some folks and they drive through it."

She says it hasn't gotten to the point of closing 48, but it's not being ruled out.

The closing on Bunola River Road is on and will start Friday morning. There is no timeline for repairing the landslide so the closure will be until further notice.