Why Pennsylvania Wants to Cut Open Allegheny Mountain
Concrete Century
886 views
The Pennsylvania Turnpike wants to close the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel and cut a gap roughly 250 feet deep through the top of the mountain instead. In June 2026, a pickup caught fire halfway through the westbound tube and about 150 people had to be evacuated.
The tunnel was dug in 1940 beside an abandoned railroad bore and twinned in 1965. The cut would cost roughly $500 million, carry seven lanes and remove about 12 million cubic yards of rock. Supporters see a safer road. Opponents see a permanent scar on one of the region's last unbroken wildlife corridors.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ROAD CLOSED — 25 American Roads You Can No Longer Drive
https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
Pennsylvania has walked away from its turnpike tunnels before, and three of them are still standing in the woods. Road Closed is about the roads that ended up on the other side: 25 highways, bridges and tunnels across America that were sealed, drowned, buried, bypassed or never finished.
Every chapter answers the same four questions: what the road carried, why it closed, what is still there, and where you can legally see it today. Each entry comes with a named landmark and approximate coordinates, so you know exactly where to start, and an access rating (Open, Restricted, Seasonal or Closed), so you don't drive four hours only to find a locked gate. Future editions are included at no extra cost.
US$14.95 · 106 pages · instant download
https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IN THIS VIDEO
• The June 2026 fire inside the westbound tube
• How an abandoned 1880s railroad shaped the 1940 turnpike
• Why Laurel Hill, Rays Hill and Sideling Hill were abandoned
• The Allegheny Front and why the turnpike had to go through it
• The realignment plan: depth, width, cost and timeline
• Safety, hazardous cargo and crash rates
• Wildlife, debt and tolls: the case against the cut
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Based on Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission statements, regional reporting on the realignment and the 2026 tunnel fire, and the history of the original turnpike. The project is still in preliminary design, so dimensions, costs and dates are approximate and may change. If something is wrong or out of date, please point it out in the comments.
If it were your call, would you bore a new tunnel, cut the mountain open, or keep the tubes that still work?
Subscribe for more stories about how American roads were designed.
Road Closed, the guide to 25 roads you can no longer drive: https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
#PennsylvaniaTurnpike #AlleghenyTunnel #Infrastructure
3 Comments
Why Pennsylvania Wants to Cut Open Allegheny Mountain
Concrete Century
886 views
The Pennsylvania Turnpike wants to close the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel and cut a gap roughly 250 feet deep through the top of the mountain instead. In June 2026, a pickup caught fire halfway through the westbound tube and about 150 people had to be evacuated.
The tunnel was dug in 1940 beside an abandoned railroad bore and twinned in 1965. The cut would cost roughly $500 million, carry seven lanes and remove about 12 million cubic yards of rock. Supporters see a safer road. Opponents see a permanent scar on one of the region's last unbroken wildlife corridors.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ROAD CLOSED — 25 American Roads You Can No Longer Drive
https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
Pennsylvania has walked away from its turnpike tunnels before, and three of them are still standing in the woods. Road Closed is about the roads that ended up on the other side: 25 highways, bridges and tunnels across America that were sealed, drowned, buried, bypassed or never finished.
Every chapter answers the same four questions: what the road carried, why it closed, what is still there, and where you can legally see it today. Each entry comes with a named landmark and approximate coordinates, so you know exactly where to start, and an access rating (Open, Restricted, Seasonal or Closed), so you don't drive four hours only to find a locked gate. Future editions are included at no extra cost.
US$14.95 · 106 pages · instant download
https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IN THIS VIDEO
• The June 2026 fire inside the westbound tube
• How an abandoned 1880s railroad shaped the 1940 turnpike
• Why Laurel Hill, Rays Hill and Sideling Hill were abandoned
• The Allegheny Front and why the turnpike had to go through it
• The realignment plan: depth, width, cost and timeline
• Safety, hazardous cargo and crash rates
• Wildlife, debt and tolls: the case against the cut
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Based on Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission statements, regional reporting on the realignment and the 2026 tunnel fire, and the history of the original turnpike. The project is still in preliminary design, so dimensions, costs and dates are approximate and may change. If something is wrong or out of date, please point it out in the comments.
If it were your call, would you bore a new tunnel, cut the mountain open, or keep the tubes that still work?
Subscribe for more stories about how American roads were designed.
Road Closed, the guide to 25 roads you can no longer drive: https://payhip.com/b/pohuS
#PennsylvaniaTurnpike #AlleghenyTunnel #Infrastructure
Road Closed is a guide to 25 American roads, bridges and tunnels you can no longer drive, and where you can still see them today.
US$14.95 · 106 pages → https://payhip.com/b/pohuS