Legislature must toughen up on DUIs

July 30, 2022

This fall, during the legislative campaign season, many Pennsylvania state lawmakers will jump aboard the opportunity to boast about having voted to toughen penalties for repeat drunken drivers. To a small degree, they are justified in seizing upon that opportunity. The action was an overdue step forward in regard to making the state’s roadways safer. Beginning in November, according to the Associated Press, some offenders convicted of a third or subsequent DUI violation will be subject to stiffer sentences. That word “some” is troubling. The correct word should be ...

Exploring turnpike alternatives

July 23, 2022

No one can say for sure if, or by how much, another 5% Pennsylvania Turnpike toll increase would impact traffic volume. For the second time this month, the Turnpike Commission cut from its agenda a vote that would have authorized such an increase. Annual toll hikes have been imposed since 2009, the negative fallout from an unsuccessful state effort to toll Interstate 80. Because that tolling, if successful, presumably would have pumped money into the turnpike’s coffers, the Legislature inserted a requirement that the turnpike, through 2021, make a $450 million annual payment from ...

Growth exceeded its ‘Target’

July 21, 2022

What traffic planners know now regarding the behemoth growth Altoona and its immediate surroundings have witnessed since the 1960s could have averted the troublesome intersection that currently exists near the Target store in the Sierra North Plaza — as well as some lesser sources of travel frustration. Trouble is, there was no way to predict back then how the area’s economic landscape would develop over the course of the next 50 or 60 years. Hanging over the area from the start was uncertainty over how Downtown Altoona would survive redevelopment upheaval and businesses’ ...

Grain bin rescue tubes important

July 11, 2022

Going forward, Williamsburg and its fire department could be in the spotlight for life-saving achievements, not only close to home but well beyond the borough’s borders. Already, the borough is justified in feeling proud about what will be forthcoming. As the June 28 article detailed, the Williamsburg Volunteer Fire Department will be one of 58 departments across the United States to receive grain rescue tubes and hands-on training to prepare its firefighters for grain bin entrapments. Such entrapments are not an everyday emergency. Perhaps the department’s soon-to-be acquired ...

Proposed Amtrak service needed

July 9, 2022

The old phrase “light at the end of the tunnel” can aptly be applied at this time to the issue of additional passenger train service in the Harrisburg-to-Pittsburgh railroad corridor, which includes Altoona and Johnstown. After so long “playing second fiddle” to passenger service eastward from Harrisburg and the long East Coast corridor, Blair and Cambria counties and counties to the west and east of these two can now feel hopeful and more optimistic than ever that more meaningful and more user-friendly passenger-train-travel opportunities might in fact be in the ...

Oil, gas remain critical

July 7, 2022

U.S. Rep. Fred Keller, R-12th District, is once again right: The U.S. can’t afford to become energy dependent on other nations. We, as we have editorialized in the past, support Keller’s efforts to increase domestic drilling and the construction of pipelines to move oil and gas where it needs to go more quickly and efficiently. Keller called for renewed pushes for domestic drilling and pipelines during a visit to Pennsylvania College of Technology. Penn College has long been at the forefront of educating Pennsylvanians for careers in the energy sector and in related ...