MOUNT POCONO -- PennDOT crews were out early in Monroe County Friday morning fixing a problem that they created on Route 611.
PennDOT line crews recently painted lines on northbound Route 611 in Mount Pocono and for some reason they put broken white lines on a stretch where two lanes actually merge into one. As you can imagine the mistake caused concern and confusion.
Mount Pocono Mayor Fred Courtright says he and his wife noticed that the broken white lines were painted where there should be only one lane of traffic.
"Wait a minute, these lines aren't supposed to be here. We noticed because there was a guy in the right lane who was trying to pass me in a section where I knew there was not supposed to be a lane,” said Courtright.
Maria Rivera of Mount Pocono says she saw those lines, too.
"I thought it was two lanes, instead of it being one, and then you saw everybody notice that it's just one lane and not two,” said Rivera.
PennDOT crews spent a couple of hours sanding off the paint from the road. This is a stretch of road that’s seen several crashes including a fatality in June of last year.
"Everybody races to get into that single lane and then they come zinging into town at about 60 miles an hour,” said Steven Hammel of Tobyhanna.
This PennDOT district painted 10,000 line miles just last year, and officials say any time a mistake like this happens, they work hard to fix it fast.
Mount Pocono’s mayor says he’s happy with the response.
"PennDOT is often a target for all of us. We all have our problems with PennDOT as far as what they're doing, when they're doing it, but I couldn't be more pleased with their response here,” said Courtright.
So are folks who shop and live near this stretch of Route 611.
"Yeah, maybe save some lives actually,” said Hammel.
"I'm hoping now there's not as much commotion over there,” said Rivera.
A PennDOT spokesman says he doesn’t know why these lines were painted wrong in the first place. We reached out to the PennDOT county maintenance manager to see if he had an answer, but we haven’t been able to reach him at this time.