I am beginning to wonder about the PennDOT traffic cameras. In the past week we have had two significant snow accumulations. Suspiciously, during each period where there was snow on the ground, the traffic cameras were down.
It is snowing today. Marisa and I cleared in excess of four inches of snow this morning when she went to work, and the flurries really haven't stopped all day. I just got a phone message from her, at work, saying I should stay in as the roads were a mess with spin outs and stalls all over the parkway.
I like an accident as much as the next guy. So I figure I will take a look from the privacy of my own home. I blow open
the PennDOT camera page to take a peek at the Parkway. This is what is there:
The PennDOT Traffic Web Camera Interface is currently offline due to technical difficulties. It should be back operational sometime early this week. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes.
That's what it said the other day too. Continuing with a little persistence I open up this page. All the way at the bottom of the left margin are the two cams most important to my commute. Interestingly, both of those images are live, but neither of the cameras is pointed at the road. Inbound shows a lovely view of the shoulder:
If so, that's really a shame. I think we all know they have a big job to do, and the cams really do help decide which route to take someplace, and how much time you need to leave to get there. Radio traffic is great, but having the cams is that much better.
I wonder if anyone will think to ask?
3 comments:
I didn't see or hear a plow, or see any evidence of one, until about 4 pm when I was on my way up to the local coffeeshop for a caffeine fix (thank god they were open - although the staff didn't look too happy...)
And I live in the city on a good solid "secondary road. "
Frankly, PennDot sucks, and not just because of their snow removal, but didn't we know this already?
(Although it just occurred to me - is City of Pgh snow removal the responsibility of PennDot? I don't think so. I'll have to ask the ubiquitous Guy Costa...Maybe I am judging one harshly (probably still well deserved) for the shortcomings of the other (also well deserved).)
I would also like to poitn out that PennDot is responsible for the West End Bridge arrow debacle.
The arrows are supposed to be able to change depending on traffic flow and how many lanes need to be open in a given direction, but apparently there's something wrong with the software or something, so they don't work properly. I know those arrows work other places, so who knows what went wrong, and other than the arrows, the West End Bridge renovation went surprisingly smoothly, but still...
Go PennDot!
we're in tech this weekend... 14 inches of snow in philly, more in jersey. needless to say, we had to put almost the entire company up in hotels for the night. it was fun finding all those rooms the weekend of a playoff game, lemmetellya. but penndot did pretty well in our neck of the woods getting things cleaned up so far... probably, again, because of the game. - lindsay
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