To keep roads in Pine township as safe to drive as possible in winter weather conditions, Pine supervisors approved a PennDOT agility agreement at the Oct. 2 meeting.

“In talking to PennDOT, one of the big issues that has been arising in Pine is winter maintenance of the state roads within Pine Township. The township has received complaints about the slow response from PennDOT regarding the treatments of these roads,” township manager Jason Kratsas said. “We’ve talked to PennDOT about the possibility of supplementing their winter maintenance through an agility agreement. The agility agreement would give the township the ability to go out onto state roads when the state hasn’t gotten there yet and do some salting and plowing that could then be reimbursed by the state through work.”

The agility agreement essentially functions as a work-share program. Whenever the state has services they could provide back, the services they provide would be costs that the township is currently responsible for.

“A great example of this would be the markings at our intersections, whether on a state road or not. Instead of the township paying to put down thermoplastic markings, the state could do that,” Kratsas said.

The next step, following the approval of the agility agreement, is for the township to work with PennDOT District 11 to create a plan delineating what Pine is willing to do with winter maintenance and what PennDOT can do in return.

“Our public works department has looked into this and made the assumption that the township would go out at the beginning of the storm. We would hire several additional CDL drivers to account for the increased workload,” Kratsas said.

If the township feels that the agreement is lopsided in favor of PennDOT, they may exit the agreement with 30 days notice.

“This time last year, we were talking about trying to find solutions to getting better service on state roads. This was a solution we came up with that will require effort on the township’s part, but on the flip side, it’s a cost that can be recovered through the agreement. No matter what we choose, PennDOT will still ultimately be responsible for winter maintenance on the roads,” Kratsas said.

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