{"id":71922,"date":"2025-12-28T11:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T11:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/71922\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T11:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T11:50:08","slug":"winter-storm-prompts-commercial-vehicle-bans-across-lehigh-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/71922\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter storm prompts commercial vehicle bans across Lehigh Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have imposed commercial vehicle bans on major highways Friday as both states prepare for a winter storm expected to dump heavy snow through Saturday.<\/p>\n

New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Fran O\u2019Connor issued restrictions starting at 3 p.m. Friday<\/a> in coordination with neighboring states. <\/p>\n

Commercial vehicles are prohibited on I-78, I-80, I-280, I-287, and Route 440 from the Outerbridge Crossing to I-287. The ban applies to the full length of these highways in both directions.<\/p>\n

Restrictions will remain in effect until further notice as the storm is forecast to deliver significant snowfall to North and Central New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania rolled out vehicle restrictions in two phases <\/a>under the commonwealth\u2019s Tier 3 weather event vehicle restriction plan.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania implemented vehicle restrictions<\/a> in two phases under its Tier 3 weather event plan:<\/p>\n

Phase 1 began at 10 a.m. Friday, covering Interstate 81 south of I-83, all Pennsylvania interstates west of I-81\u2014including PA Turnpike I-76, PA Turnpike I-70, and all western PA Turnpike extensions.Phase 2 started at 2 p.m. Friday on I-81 north of I-83, Route 33 for its entire length, U.S. 22 between I-78 and Route 33, and all Pennsylvania interstates east of I-81\u2014including PA Turnpike I-76 and all eastern PA Turnpike extensions.<\/p>\n

Speed limits will be restricted to 45 mph on these roadways for all vehicles while restrictions are in place. <\/p>\n

Commercial vehicles that are not affected by the restrictions must move to the right lane. Additional speed restrictions on other interstates could be added depending on changing conditions.<\/p>\n

Officials are urging all motorists to avoid unnecessary travel on Friday and Saturday. <\/p>\n

Trucks already in New Jersey when restrictions begin should pull off at truck stops to wait out the storm and avoid park on shoulders. If road conditions deteriorate while driving, motorists should pull off somewhere safe and wait.<\/p>\n

PennDOT advises drivers encountering snow squalls or blowing snow to slow down gradually, turn on headlights and hazard lights, stay in their lane and increase following distance. <\/p>\n

During whiteouts, motorists should stop only after safely pulling off the roadway and never in active traffic lanes.<\/p>\n

Preliminary data shows that last winter in Pennsylvania there were 8,329 crashes, 29 fatalities, and 2,959 injuries on snowy, slushy, or ice-covered roads. <\/p>\n

Of those who died, 11 were not wearing a seat belt, and 17 were in crashes where a driver was going too fast for conditions and drove out of their lane.<\/p>\n

Officials recommend keeping an emergency kit in vehicles with a cell phone charger, water, snacks and a blanket. <\/p>\n

Real-time travel information is available at www.511nj.org and www.511pa.org. More information on safe winter travel and emergency kit checklists is available at www.PennDOT.pa.gov\/winter and www.PennDOT.pa.gov\/safety. <\/p>\n

See the Advance Local Guide to Disclosing Use of AI<\/a>. Generative AI was used to draft this story, based on data provided by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and 511PA. It was reviewed and edited by the local newsroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania and New Jersey have imposed commercial vehicle bans on major highways Friday as both states prepare for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-71922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}