LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — From motorcycles to work trucks, more than a dozen drivers were forced to turn around on Suscon Road in Bear Creek Township.
Monday was the start of a roughly four-month construction project where PennDOT crews plan to demolish a small bridge and build a new culvert.
The road closure now leads drivers on a lengthy detour.
The work zone for the Suscon Road closure is about half a mile long, but the detour around it, according to PennDOT, is 11 miles, an inconvenience for drivers who say they use this road every day.
"I am a business guy, you know, so that wastes my time and my money," said Loai Daher of Forty Fort.
He says the detour adds an extra 20 minutes of driving time and is poorly marked.
A problem that's left him rushing to make appointments.
"Where I am to where I go to, it will take me 30 minutes, but now at least 45 minutes to get there," Daher.
Paige Adler, who lives just a few miles away from the construction, is one of the 900 people who PennDot data shows on average use the road everyday.
"I got about halfway there, and I've been on the road now. About 45 minutes trying to maneuver my way around," Paige Adler of Thornhurst Township
While the detour will take some getting used to, Adler says she's worried about the people who aren't familiar with the area.
"It will definitely affect people from out of town coming from Jersey and New York and stuff because they're not gonna know where to go obviously like I don't right now," said Adler.
The detour was put in place on Monday and continues through the fall of 2024.
Check real-time conditions with the WNEP Traffic Tracker.
PennDOT updates are available HERE.