DALTON -- Some changes are coming to a busy stretch of highway in Lackawanna County and it's a good thing for drivers.
Routes 6 and 11 north of Clarks Summit have been down to one lane each way due to construction, but not anymore.
Traffic along Routes 6 and 11 in the western part of Lackawanna County has been frustrating for drivers as construction work has kept both the eastbound and westbound directions down to a single lane.
“I come over here a lot. I come over every Tuesday night and every other weekend for school and I'm usually stuck over there at the light for a while just to get through the traffic,” said Marisa Evans, who commutes from Greenfield Township to attend Keystone College.
The stretch of highway that’s under construction runs a little more than seven miles, starting just north of Clarks Summit and ends just over the Wyoming County line where Routes 6 and 11 split.
For the duration of the winter, however, those lanes are returning to their normal traffic pattern, being reopened back to two lanes in each direction.
“One of the things that happen over the winter is that contractors are not able to do as much work out there so we made the decision to put the entire project back to the normal traffic pattern, where you have two lanes going west, two lanes going east,” said James May with PennDOT.
“Oh, that's wonderful! I travel it every day and it's wonderful,” said Linda Barnes from Dalton.
Already most the eastbound lanes heading into Clarks Summit have reopened.
“It is nice that everything is opening back up now and that traffic is going to flow a lot easier and smoother,” said Evans.
“There seems to be a lot of traffic coming through here now with them opening up the construction, so I think for the winter time that's certainly going to help a lot of the people in the area,” said Bob Gerrity from Fleetville.
However, PennDOT has some advisories for drivers.
“For a number of months, people have become accustomed to pulling onto a lane where there's no traffic,” said May. “That is now an active road there and they need to be very, very careful when they're pulling out.”
In the spring, construction work on Routes 6 and 11 will start back up again, with traffic in the eastbound lanes going back to a single lane.
After that, a final paving will take place at night.