The joke is on PennDOT

Is there any wonder there have been so many jokes made about the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation over the years, until you drive on the roads in Pennsylvania, then you realize why.

I am no road engineer, but I know through my own common sense that when you live in a climate that freezes in the winter and reaches temperatures in the 90s during the summer, roads must be made to allow for expansion and contraction. In order to allow for freezing and thawing, it requires Pennsylvania roads especially to have a good deep, solid base, which must be deep enough to go below the frost line of at least 8 to 10 inches.

The reason I know this is because, when I had a home built in Jim Thorpe back in 1983, in a wooded mountainous area above the Lehigh Gorge State Park, the developer was supposed to put in a shale base of 6 to 8 inches, according to the zoning requirements for all the roadways throughout our development.

As it turned out, all of us residents who lived within this development at this time had a terrible situation driving over these roads because of the many voids, craters, ruts and potholes throughout. We were blowing tires, replacing brakes and shock absorbers among other damage being done to our vehicles from having to drive over these deplorable roads day in and day out.

When all of us had finally had enough, we hired an engineering firm to assess this bad road situation, and we were told by the engineering firm that the shale base was barely 4 inches deep. It would be foolish for us to keep paving over the top of these roads without the proper base being put below the frost line. I have since moved out of this area of Jim Thorpe and was very glad to never have to drive over these poorly installed roads again.

I suppose whoever installs the roads, whether it is in a development or a state highway, figures nobody is going to check to see how deep they went with the base, so within a year or so we Pennsylvania drivers are back to driving on bad roads.

I have written several letters to our state representatives regarding the condition of route 309 from Tamaqua to McAdoo and was informed they wouldn't be considered for improvement until sometime in 2015. I was certainly glad to read in last week's Times News that someone other than me is complaining about the road conditions in Pennsylvania.

Whether any of our state politicians are listening I am sure is another "dead end." I am hoping more Pennsylvania drivers join me in the fight for better roads in Pennsylvania, because we're certainly paying high enough taxes to have better roads.

John M. "Jack" Selby

Hometown