“An unbroken ribbon of concrete cutting through mountains and across valleys, bypassing towns. No stop signs, no intersections, no speed limits … The Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first of its kind and received nationwide acclaim as an engineering marvel. It was touted as “America’s first superhighway” when it opened on October 1, 1940, and was the national standard for superhighway design and engineering.”
How the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) describes
the Pennsylvania Turnpike on its website.
Photo: A truck, its driver and others wait for the Turnpike to open to vehicles
at the Irwin Interchange. (Photo: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission). Click to enlarge.
FreightWaves featured one of their “Classics, Part 1” titled “FreightWaves Classics: Pennsylvania (Pa.)Turnpike was first superhighway in the US (Part 1)” in the October 2021 issue. A link for “Classics, Part 2” is included below.
BEGINNINGS:
1880’s:
Decades before construction on the Turnpike began, it’s original route was envisioned by William H. Vanderbilt as an alternative to the rival Pennsylvania Railroad—from Harrisburg, Pa. to Pittsburgh, Pa. Vanderbilt wanted to add to his railroad holdings (the New York City & Hudson River Railroad [NYC&HRR]). He secured the right-of-way for the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad Company and a two-track roadbed with nine tunnels was planned.
1884:
Tunnel excavation began early, and construction continued through 1884 and 1885. However …
1885:
The project was halted. Banker J. Pierpont Morgan won a board seat on the NYC&HRRR and he and the railroad’s president sold the South Pennsylvania Railroad Company’s right-of-way to George B. Roberts, President-Pennsylvania Railroad.
Vanderbilt had spent $10 million on the railroad &
26 men died in construction accidents.
($10 million in 1885 is equivalent to $2.82 billion today.)
The unfinished project was termed “Vanderbilt’s Folly”.
The proposed railway became Vanderbilt’s abandoned railway route.
1910:
Nearly 25 years later, early cars and trucks were starting to spill out of the major cities and using the rudimentary roads (that had been built for horses and carts) to transport people and freight. By 1910, some proposed to convert Vanderbilt’s abandoned railway route into a motorway. The idea of a turnpike across the Allegheny Mountains gained support over the next two decades—including support from the trucking industry.
PHOTO: The stock market crash of 1929.
1929:
The stock market crashed and led to The Great Depression
1933:
Franklin Roosevelt was elected president
March 1933:
Roosevelt took office on the promise of ending the financial calamity. The Roosevelt administration promoted work-relief projects to cut the unemployment rate. The Pennsylvania Turnpike idea was approved with a construction cost estimated between $60 million and $70 million.
1934—LATE:
Victor Lecoq, Employee-Pennsylvania State Planning Board, and William Sutherland, Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, proposed building a toll highway utilizing the old railroad bed and tunnels.
1935:
April 23:
Cliff S. Patterson, Pennsylvania State Rep., embraced the idea and introduced “House Resolution 138” to authorize a feasibility study.
1937:
May 21:
After a favorable surveyor’s report, Governor George Earle signed “Act 211” which established the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC).
June 4:
First commission members named.
1938:
The project’s financing was not yet in place, but the first contract was awarded to a Pittsburgh-based contractor for removal of water from the existing tunnels.
October 10:
The final approval for federal financing occurred. The first construction contract was advertised for bids 4 days later. The contract covered a 10-mile segment of the Turnpike, however no right-of-ways had been purchased.
Photo: Groundbreaking ceremonies October 27, 1938.
Walter Jones, Commission Chairman, turns the first spade of dirt.
(Photo: Pennsylvania State Archives) Click to enlarge.
John Faller, General Counsel-Pennsylvania Turnpike, talked to the farmers who owned the land that was proposed as the future right-of-way. Faller and representatives from the federal Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation were met by 200-300 farmers and others who lived nearby. The officials spoke to the landowner’s wife. She agreed to sell the tract to the state and asked for their autographs. When Jones asked her why she wanted the autographs, she replied:
“Mr. Jones, I want these autographs so that my children can say that they saw history being made that day when the greatest highway, a new era of road building, was started.”
Prior to construction, the PTC relied on funds from the federal government, the Pennsylvania Department of Highways, and loans from private industry. Samuel W. Marshall, Chief Project Engineer, supervised 115 engineers from the beginning, to more than 1,100 engineers after 3 months. The large staff was necessary in order to meet the construction-season cycle, as well as the completion deadline set by the federal government.
The $29 million grant from the federal PWA came with strings – a completion date of June 1, 1940, by which “the highway should be substantially complete” – a very short 20-month deadline that is unimaginable today!
Building the Turnpike:
Previous turnpikes were built with flat curves to discourage speeding. But the new turnpike was going to be a different type of highway—easy grades to allow cars and trucks to use the road at higher speeds year-round and “long, sweeping curves” that provided room for high speeds and safe stopping distances. The following standards were part of the design process:
- Right-of-way width of 200 feet
- 4-lane divided configuration:
– 12-foot-wide concrete traffic lanes
– 10-foot-wide median strip
– 10-foot-wide shoulders
= total width of 78 feet - Maximum grade of 3% (3 feet of climb for every 100 feet of forward travel)
– compared to hills as steep as 9% to 12% on Pennsylvania’s two-lane William Penn Highway (US 22) and Lincoln Highway (US 30) - Maximum curvature of 6º
– most of which occurred on the climb from New Baltimore to the Allegheny Tunnel
– most curves were only 3% to 4% - Substantial super-elevation/banking, on curves
- Limited access, with 1,200-foot-long entrance and exit ramps to provide room to accelerate and decelerate
- Minimum 600-foot sight distance from motorist to traffic ahead
- No cross streets, driveways, traffic signals, crosswalks or railroad grade crossings
All vehicular and pedestrian traffic would go over or under the Turnpike
Along the same distance on the Lincoln Highway and US 11, there were 939 cross streets, 12 railroad crossings and 25 traffic signals
The crew of the L.M. Hutchison Company, the first contractor on the Turnpike.
(Photo: Pennsylvania State Archives)
Turnpike’s Design:
What also made the Pennsylvania Turnpike design different was that it was considered one continuous design project from Irwin to Carlisle (the two towns that were at the original ends of the turnpike). Charles Noble, Design Engineer, later Chief Engineer-PTC-New Jersey Highway Department and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, described this project detail in the July 1940 issue of “Civil Engineering“: “Unlike the existing highway systems of the United States, in which design standards fluctuate every few miles, depending on the date of construction, the Turnpike will have the same design characteristics throughout its 160-mile length. Every effort has been directed towards securing uniform and consistent operating conditions for the motorist. In fact, the design was attacked from the viewpoint of motor-car operation and the human frailty of the driver, rather than from that of the difficulty of the terrain and method of construction. This policy of design, based on vehicle operation, is relatively new.”
All of the preliminary surveying and land acquisition was completed, and laborers began to pour into southern Pennsylvania nearly 54 years after construction of Vanderbilt’s railroad began.
1939:
Construction begins:
The Turnpike, its 7 tunnels, and more than 300 structures were under contract by July, and construction began in August. Construction contracts were awarded to 155 companies from 18 states. The project’s first concrete was poured on August 31, 1939.
1940—Spring:
More than 15,000 workers were busy building the Turnpike. There was very little available housing along the Turnpike’s route through rural southwestern and south central Pennsylvania, so some workers and their families lived in tents near the various construction sites. Hourly wages ranged from $0.525 for unskilled laborers to $1.40 for heavy equipment operators.
In order to stay within the timetable set by the PWA, contractors and their crews had to work 2 shifts per day, sometimes 3. Crews had to use portable generators to supply electricity to the work areas, “because little commercial electricity was available.” About $30 million of highway-building equipment was used on the project.
Massive project scope:
160 miles of 4-lane, all-concrete highway
from Middlesex in Cumberland County (15 miles west of Harrisburg)
to Irwin in Westmoreland County (20 miles east of Pittsburgh):
• 7 2-lane tunnels totaling 6.7 miles in length—6 of the 7 tunnels were former South Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels
• 11 interchanges, with toll booths (originally ticket offices)—1 toll plaza served both Carlisle and Middlesex
• 10 service plazas, located 25 to 30 miles apart, where travelers could purchase gasoline and food:
Construction costs = $500,000
Commission voted not to operate the plazas, but to license them to Standard Oil of Pennsylvania, which operated the gas stations and in turn subcontracted the dining areas and gift shops to Howard Johnson’s. Copying the German autobahns, the plazas were designed to resemble regional architecture – early Pennsylvania stone houses.
Building the tunnels:
Construction on the tunnels was an around-the-clock cycle:
Completing the tunnels was the hardest task of all. None of the original South Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels had been “holed-through” in 1885, but instead, excavated from both ends. The uncompleted tunnel sections ranged from 551 feet to 3,379 feet:
• Technology had changed in the intervening 55 years, there were problems due to the way that the tunnels were initially bored
• Railroad originally planned to build double-track tunnels, but financial issues arose, causing the design to be changed to single-track width tunnels
• Turnpike engineers “found wide entrances but narrow widths in the deepest parts”
• Widen tunnels to 23 feet and a height of 14 feet
• Reinforce the walls and floors with concrete lining
• Build housings for the ventilating fans that would blow fresh air into the tunnels to keep carbon monoxide levels safe. Interestingly, many of those excavating the tunnels were coal miners who had lost their jobs due to a strike against the coal companies
Despite issues, utilizing the South Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels saved both time and money.
Single-span bridge over the Turnpike near Donegal.
(Photo: Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission)
Clear Ridge:
Just east of the town of Everett was a hillside named Clear Ridge. PTC engineers considered building a tunnel through Clear Ridge, but decided on a large cut instead, and required:
• Massive earth-moving operation:
• 153-feet-deep and one-half-mile long. First U.S. attempt at cutting a highway that deep!
• Cut nicknamed “Little Panama” by PTC promoters—Associated the project with world-famous Panama Canal. … Amount of dirt removed at:
Clear Ridge: impressive 1.1 million cubic yards
Panama Canal: 200 million cubic yards!
• Fill added and compacted—avoid shifting when concrete poured & smooth highway alignment of uneven terrain
1939:
Nearly 13 miles of highway was poured
1940-Spring:
• Wet weather slowed progress
May 8, 1940:
• Only 30 miles of highway was finished
• After the weather improved, 50 paving units were able to produce 2 to 3.5 miles of highway each day
Bridges and Culverts Built:
• Over 300 bridges
• Culverts ranging from 6 feet to 600 feet in length
• Single-span bridges with concrete arches—carry local highways over Turnpike
Fall 1940:
Most of the work on the Turnpike was ending. At speeds up to 100 mph, test drives were made on the new highway!! Other preparations were taking place as well… (Please see link below for Part 2 of the article)
For the FreightWaves full article, please go to: www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-pennsylvania-turnpike-was-first-superhighway-in-the-us-part-1
For the FreightWaves article Part 2 titled “FreightWaves Classics: Pennsylvania Turnpike was nation’s first superhighway (Part 2)”, please go to: www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-pennsylvania-turnpike-was-nations-first-superhighway-part-2
Author’s note: FreightWaves thanks the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and pahighways.com for information and photos used in the articles about the Pennsylvania Turnpike.