Major highway interchange project in Centre County enters year 2. What to expect

With construction on a $259 million, three-phase Interstate 80/Interstate 99 interchange project in Centre County well underway, state Department of Transportation officials provided additional information Tuesday on what to expect in the project’s second year.

At a 2025 construction preview meeting, PennDOT officials shared that the project’s second phase is moving along as scheduled, with the layout of the interchange beginning to take shape.

While no large on- and off-ramps will be seen by drivers this year, some equally-crucial work is taking place, such as the significant moving of earth to create a foundation for the ramps to be built on, and the construction of a highway drainage system.

Additionally, a nearly 2,600-foot-long retaining wall will be build alongside I-80’s westbound lane, in between the highway’s two lanes. The wall will be the largest of the of four built during the project.

“For this project to work, we had to shift the westbound lane [of I-80] closer to the eastbound lane, which is why this retaining wall is being built — to support the highway,” Peter Hall, an assistant construction engineer said. “There used to be a gradual slope down into the Nittany Creek from the interstate, but now, with the retaining wall, the highway is going to be right on top of it.”

Upcoming traffic impacts

Construction on the retaining wall is expected to be finished by mid-summer — after that, a new, temporary traffic pattern for the interstate will be implemented.

Instead of the interstate’s eastbound and westbound lanes each having the usual two lanes of traffic, drivers traveling east will see their lanes split, with the left lane crossing over the median to run alongside the interstate’s westbound lane.

This crossover will give Trumbull Corp., the project’s Pittsburgh-based contractor, more room to complete additional shoulder and drainage work on the highway’s eastbound side.

Drivers can also expect demolition work to continue this summer on the bridges that allow for I-80 to pass over state Route 26, also known as Jacksonville Road. In March, PennDOT implemented detours to allow for the demolition of the interstate’s eastbound bridge that crossed over Route 26.

Before any new bridges can be built though, Jacksonville Road must undergo an $8.6 million betterment and realignment project — to be completed by Glenn O. Hawbaker Inc. — which will signify the start of the project’s third phase.

“The [Jacksonville Road] project is going to improve curves and widen the roadway along this three-mile stretch,” PennDOT Assistant District Executive Steve Fantechi said. “A detour is actually already in place — northbound traffic heading up Jacksonville can continue on that roadway, but traffic heading toward Bellefonte must use the local access interchange and (I-80) to get there.”

The local access interchange was built in 2022 as part of the overall project’s first phase.

Currently, I-99 shares a piece of its highway with Route 26, with the interstate’s end being signified by a traffic light that provides drivers with the option to either enter onto westbound I-80, or continue along the route.

In the future though, once the route’s realignment is complete, it will no longer interact with the interstate in any way, creating an S-shaped road underneath the interchange that will eventually link back up with its currently-closed portion. Once finished, drivers looking to access Jacksonville Road will have to do so from the local access interchange.

While a timeline for the completion of the betterment project was not provided, PennDOT officials expect the overall interchange project to be completed in 2030.

According to a PennDOT release last September, once the overall project is completed, the department expects to be left with an interchange that will “enhance traffic safety by providing a direct connection between the two highways, making it unnecessary to travel along Route 26 to access them, relieving traffic congestion, and realigning service for local traffic.”

Caleb Meighen, a civil engineer for PennDOT, likened the eventual finished product to a “triple layer cake” that will look similar to the large highway interchanges found around the Harrisburg area.

In the coming years, the project will see 30 structures being built, including ten bridges, four retaining walls, five box culverts, seven sign structures and three changeable message boards.

About $170 million of the funding used to pay for the project comes from the $1 trillion federal infrastructure legislation that passed in 2021.

Other projects around Centre County

At the Tuesday meeting, PennDOT officials also touched on other projects that Centre County residents can expect to encounter this year, including a $22 million reconstruction of two I-80 bridges five miles east of the interchange project that pass over Sand Ridge Road.

That project will limit both east- and westbound traffic over the bridges to just one lane, and is expected to be finished in November.

Other projects taking place in 2025 include:

• An $809,752 bicycle/pedestrian improvement project in Ferguson Township
• Two College Township bridge preservation projects on Elmwood Street and U.S. Route 322, each costing $2 million and $1.9 million, respectively
• A $4.55 million resurfacing of Route 455 in Walker and Miles townships
• $450,000 in safety improvements to the intersection of Routes 26 and 150 in Howard Township.