A PA project could cost $800M and improve safety. Centre County residents fear what it’d destroy
Jesse Darlington sat atop his tractor overlooking part of the 250-acre farm his family has owned for more than three decades, preparing to feed his nearly three dozen Black Angus cattle just hours after a calf was born.
Bald eagles soar through the valley with regularity. Turkeys and deer are habitual visitors. Nearly two dozen goats, more than a dozen horses and pigs call the farm home.
The 52-year-old father of three proudly feeds those animals with the wheat, soybeans, hay, corn and oats that’s harvested from the fields season after season.
But there’s the possibility all of that could be wiped away if the state Department of Transportation opts to bring a major construction project through the U.S. Route 322 corridor.
“Farming alone is stressful, but when you know you’re going to lose something that you worked so hard for and your parents before you worked so hard for, I can’t put it in words. My kids worked so hard throughout their life and now probably won’t get an opportunity to farm because they’re taking it away from us,” Darlington said. “There’s no amount of money that can pay for all that time and effort that we put into this. When people say, ‘Well, you’re going to get land value,’ it never offsets what we have invested in this farm and our love for farming, for sure.”
Six of the nine proposed routes for the State College Area Connector would bring the project through the Route 322 corridor. One of those six is to upgrade the existing highway, while the remaining five would first bring the project south of the road.
And any of those five options would cut through Darlington’s farm, leaving the Centre County native and lifelong farmer no choice but to shut his operation down.
“We cannot farm with roads going through the middle of our farm. If it would skirt along the edge, it’s not a problem, but it doesn’t show that it’s going to do that,” Darlington said. “... I would rather them take my house and my barn than take my farm and my animals. I can live somewhere else. My cows can’t; my horses can’t.”
‘We don’t wish this on anybody’
Darlington’s late father is buried on the farm. His mother, Bonnie Darlington, lives in one of the two houses on the property. She spoke from her dining room table against the backdrop of large windows that offer a panoramic view of the expansive farm.
The new highway could be constructed just a stone’s throw away.
“The family has been farming since 1682 and now we may not be continuing if this happens,” she said, her voice fading. “We’re praying. We don’t wish this on anybody.”
The Darlingtons were two of more than a half-dozen Potter Township residents who spoke with the Centre Daily Times about the long-planned project that could cost upward of $800 million.
Each separately acknowledged improvements need to be made to the highway that has seen no shortage of deadly crashes — three last year alone — but said putting the new highway through the farms that represent their livelihoods isn’t exactly palatable.
Greg Smith, a 65-year-old Air Force veteran, poured at least $700,000 into a new home that he’s only lived in for several months. Erskine Cash, 74, fears the house he’s lived in since 1977 could be replaced by a cloverleaf interchange.
Allan Darr, 65, has a private horse farm that he’s lived in since 1995. He’s the man behind the signs along the existing highway that read “Save Colyer. No divided families or farms.”
None of the proposed routes would cut through Save Colyer Lake President Tom Kistler’s property. Yet he expressed concern the highway could put the “fabric of the community” at risk.
Doug Rimmey and his wife own a 95-acre farm that would be bisected by any of the proposed routes along Route 322.
“This is really upsetting as hell knowing that the value of this farm would be roughly 50% of what it is today with a four-lane through it,” Rimmey said.
How did we get here?
The project has been on the drawing board for nearly two decades, but was abandoned in 2004 when funding was pulled by the federal government. Gov. Tom Wolf announced during a 2019 press conference that funding would come from the state.
The project would complete a four-lane highway from Happy Valley to Harrisburg, if PennDOT chooses the Route 322 corridor.
The highway handles about 15,000 vehicles daily and is expected to see a 27% increase in annual average daily traffic by 2050, while daily truck volume is expected to increase by 31%.
Is PennDOT seriously considering the state Route 144 corridor?
The state’s highway agency outlined three potential options that would run in the vicinity of state Route 144. Each would connect with Interstate 99, which leads to Interstate 80.
Several Potter Township residents, Harris Township Manager Amy Farkas and township Board of Supervisors Vice Chairman Frank Harden questioned how serious any Route 144 option could be.
“I think that they are looking at 144 because they feel that they have to,” Farkas said. “... I don’t know how realistic 144 will be because it’s problematic — that mountain has been in pretty bad shape for a while in terms of putting trucks on it. ... I think that you’re going to find that when we get to the next round there’s going to be a host of issues with those routes that they’re going to identify and say that’s the reason for taking it off the table.”
Some residents who spoke with the CDT were rankled by the project’s name, which Harris Township labeled as “misleading.”
The name insinuates that PennDOT intends to not consider any direct routes that would facilitate travel for trucks from Seven Mountains to I-80, the township wrote in a September statement. The township asked PennDOT to rename the project years ago, but were rejected.
Wolf even made mention of Penn State, football games at Beaver Stadium and the about 13-mile stretch between Potters Mills and Boalsburg during his press conference three years ago.
“We are generally supportive of the project moving forward, as these types of projects would help address safety concerns, access to the region and economic viability for the community in the future,” university spokeswoman Lisa Powers wrote in an email. “We have not had direct conversations with PennDOT about this project nor have we expressed an opinion about a preferred alignment.”
Harris Township’s Board of Supervisors has made clear they do not support any alignment that would bring the project through the township.
They endorsed one of the three routes proposed for the Route 144 corridor, saying a “significant” amount of semitrailers that travel through the area are destined for I-80 and that would give them the most direct path.
About 62% of heavy trucks traveling along Route 322 westbound are headed toward I-80, according to data gathered by PennDOT. Most passenger vehicles are headed toward Happy Valley.
PennDOT, Harden said, is “going to go where they want to go and there’s not a whole lot we’re going to do about it.”
“To be quite honest with you, after all this is said and done, I think they’re coming right up the current 322 route. I hope not, but if you watch and listen to them and everything that’s coming out, I just think that’s where they’re headed with it,” Harden said. “We’re going to try our darnedest to get the best solution.”
The township’s decision-makers also expressed concern that PennDOT used outdated maps in its first proposal. That’s significant, the township said, when the alignments would “forever alter the character of our community.”
“I think that upsets people because then they literally feel like PennDOT doesn’t know that their home exists or their neighborhood exists,” Farkas said. “They’re concerned that they’re being left behind and they’re not going to be taken into consideration.”
Where does it go from here?
There are two public meetings planned this week.
One is scheduled for 3-8 p.m. Tuesday at Calvary Church, 150 Harvest Fields Drive in Boalsburg. The other is scheduled for 3-8 p.m. Wednesday at the Centre Hall Volunteer Fire Company, 134 N. Witmer Ave.
Information presented at both meetings will be identical. PennDOT is expected to offer updated data, traffic analyses and refined proposals since the last public meetings in September.
Farkas encouraged people to attend the meetings, saying a collaborative approach “will get a better outcome.”
The planning and environmental linkage study is the first of five phases in advancing the project.
PennDOT hopes to have a draft report completed by mid-summer that would recommend moving forward with two or three routes, department spokeswoman Marla Fannin wrote in an email.
The final study would be followed preliminary engineering and environmental studies, final engineering design, right-of-way acquisition and construction.
The latter is slated to begin in 2027 and is expected to take upward of four years to complete.
This story was originally published April 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.