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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Joe Dolinsky</p><p>jdolinsky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><style>
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<div class="neCaption">PennDOT data show one accident at the intersection of Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and the southbound lanes of the Cross Valley Expressway between 2011 and 2014. A city resident fears it may take someone&#8217;s death for officials to realize a traffic signal is needed there. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_TTL070115intersection1.jpg</photo0><caption0>PennDOT data show one accident at the intersection of Wilkes-Barre Boulevard and the southbound lanes of the Cross Valley Expressway between 2011 and 2014. A city resident fears it may take someone&#8217;s death for officials to realize a traffic signal is needed there. </caption0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_shinko.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Shinko </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_shinko.jpg</photo1><caption1>Shinko </caption1></div></div>
<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; A frustrated city resident said she is fighting a losing battle that put her in the middle of a back-and-forth between Wilkes-Barre and PennDOT over responsibility of a busy area intersection.</p><p>Maryjane Shinko, a Wilkes-Barre resident for more than two decades, said she believes the intersection of Wilkes-Barre Boulevard with the southbound Cross Valley Expressway is a safety concern that, if ignored, could turn deadly for drivers.</p><p>A school bus driver, Shinko, 58, said the intersection is so much of a problem that she reroutes herself to avoid putting students in harm&#8217;s way while driving the bus. But in her personal vehicle, Shinko said she uses the intersection daily and likened making a left turn toward Parsons to &#8220;fighting people coming out of pit road.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;You have traffic coming down both ways going toward town and toward Parsons,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That traffic pattern is very fast so there&#8217;s no let up to pull out.&#8221;</p><p><strong>&#8216;It&#8217;s a game&#8217;</strong></p><p>In the past two years, Shinko, of West Beatty Street in Miners Mills, said she has written letters, made phone calls and attended city traffic committee and council meetings in an effort to get a traffic light installed at the intersection.</p><p>During last month&#8217;s city council meeting, Shinko made her case to council that previous traffic studies performed there didn&#8217;t tell the whole story.</p><p>According to data from PennDOT, just one accident was recorded at the intersection between 2011 and 2014. The accident occurred in 2011 and three motorists suffered injuries of &#8220;unknown severity.&#8221; Zero fatalities were recorded.</p><p>At the June 11 meeting, council agreed to send PennDOT a formal request for another study.</p><p>&#8220;The number of crashes don&#8217;t really give a clear indication,&#8221; Councilman Bill Barrett told Shinko during the meeting.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re telling (PennDOT) that there is another problem there and we&#8217;re asking them to take a look at it and to see if in fact there&#8217;s something that can be done to remedy that situation,&#8221; Barrett explained.</p><p>But after Shinko&#8217;s latest conversation with PennDOT in which an official said the city was responsible for the cost of the traffic light, Shinko said she&#8217;d had enough.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know where else to turn at this point,&#8221; Shinko said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a game that they&#8217;re playing that they get paid to play and the taxpaying citizens of Wilkes-Barre and the surrounding areas don&#8217;t.&#8221;</p><p><strong>PennDOT weighs in</strong></p><p>PennDOT assistant traffic engineer Tom Pichiarella, who confirmed PennDOT received council&#8217;s request June 18, said before performing the study, the department would need a &#8220;financial commitment&#8221; from Wilkes-Barre that they&#8217;ll pay for the signal.</p><p>Ownership of a traffic signal falls under the responsibility of the city or municipality it&#8217;s located in, Pichiarella explained. In the coming days the city would be notified of the requirement in writing, he said.</p><p>Not including design costs,Pichiarella said the average price of a signal can range anywhere from $140,000 to $160,000.</p><p>Barrett, who has questioned the safety of the intersection in the past, believes the costs should be borne by the state but said PennDOT officials are &#8220;reluctant to recognize this is a problem.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve brought it to their attention before and they&#8217;ve been reluctant to do anything with it,&#8221; Barrett said. &#8220;Somebody can sit in an office and look at data and say there&#8217;s no problem here. I think all you have to do is go and take a look at it and you&#8217;ll see the need.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Past safety efforts</strong></p><p>Shinko and her husband, Mike, advocated in 2009 for a similar cause. The two petitioned city council for a four-way stop at Beatty and North Washington streets to slow traffic they said was endangering children in the area, gathering more than 100 signatures toward the cause.</p><p>After the city&#8217;s traffic committee declined city council&#8217;s request to conduct a traffic study there, council passed a resolution ordering it to be done. The process took over five months.</p><p>Barrett said he agreed with Shinko that the intersection posed a problem for motorists during peak traffic hours and that the expressway &#8212; not the boulevard &#8212; is the reason.</p><p>&#8220;We are in agreement with (Shinko), and this is a state highway exiting onto a city roadway.&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s an entrance and exit to their highway. Nothing more, nothing less.&#8221;</p><p>But Pichiarella said there&#8217;s a &#8220;good possibility&#8221; the study &#8212; if performed &#8212; won&#8217;t warrant a signal.</p><p>Barrett said once council receives and reviews the letter from PennDOT, they&#8217;ll &#8220;see what can be done and work on a solution.&#8221;</p><p>But ultimately, he believes the issue needs to be addressed head-on.</p><p>&#8220;If there&#8217;s a problem there it shouldn&#8217;t be a matter of who&#8217;s paying for what, it should be a matter of who&#8217;s dealing with the problem,&#8221; he said.</p><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Joe Dolinsky can be reached at 570-991-6110 or on Twitter @JoeDolinskyTL</shirttailMeta></div>

Citizen seeking traffic light getting mixed signals from Wilkes-Barre and PennDOT