PA 611 reopens after 6-week shutdown. Just in time for Memorial Day, say business owners
PA 611 has reopened after a six-week shutdown to repair portions of a roadway retaining wall that crumbled due to heavy rains.
Local businesses said the many detours hurt them and are pleased the roadway has reopened.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has removed materials that fell on the roadway, fixed several sections with fill materials and made concrete repairs where needed. The construction also included resetting 500 sections of barrier along the winding roadside.
The section of PA 611 that suffered damage during the April 7 rainstorm was between Mountain Road at Waring Drive and Slateford Road in Delaware Water Gap Borough and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. It was reopened to traffic on Thursday.
During the closure, traffic between Portland, Northampton County to Delaware Water Gap Borough, Monroe County was detoured on PA 512, PA 33, US 209, Interstate 80, and Business Route 209.
Lauren Chamberlain, owner of Asparagus Sunshine in Delaware Water Gap organized a gathering with local business owners at the Point of the Gap to get the message out that the roadway was now open.
Chamberlain said "there were no cars coming through other than disgruntled people that didn't know where the detour was or how to get around it." She said business owners were grateful to local officials Rosemary Brown and Mario Scavello, whose offices worked with the state DOT "to treat this as an emergency situation."
Chamberlain said her business was down more than 85% during the road's closure.
"I know everyone else in our surrounding area took severe losses as well," she said. "It was such a roadblock, literally and figuratively."
Portland Mayor Heather Fisher said after the long pandemic, businesses were gearing up for recovery and then the road closure shut down their main artery for the tourism business.
"It was just bad timing to lose that bridge between our communities and making it really difficult for tourists and our businesses in town," Fisher said.
Fisher said it hit her community especially hard forcing people to have to detour via Interstate 80 and pay the toll. "Some of our businesses literally opened before the pandemic and just really struggled…they need and depend on the Delaware River tubers and kayakers."
Susan Cooper, owner of the Village Farmer and Bakery in the Delaware Water Gap said she was devastated when she thought PA 611 was going to be shut down for the season. "Summer is what it's all about here and now it opened just in time for the Memorial Day Weekend Holiday."
Steve Ertle, manager of The Lounge at Baymont Inn in Bartonsville said the corridor between Portland and Delaware Water Gap is crucial to businesses. "Not only does it connect communities and tourism, it is also the alternate route for emergency vehicles for Interstate 80 traffic coming into and out of the Poconos. The time for an ambulance to get to the scene would drastically go up during an accident or closure."
Ertle, who is running for the 189th District said Route 80 has more than 100,000 vehicles driving by per day and that number skyrockets on summer and holiday weekends, including Memorial Day and race weekend. Route 80, he said, "easily bottlenecks and overspills onto this section of PA-611. It is an incredibly important artery for the Poconos."
This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Pa 611 reopens after six-week shutdown; making business owners happy
