Respect the Zone: The Importance of Work Zone Awareness

In this episode of Constructing Connections, we’re joined by Jason Zang, District Executive for PennDOT District 11, to highlight National Work Zone Awareness Week (April 21–25), themed “Respect the Zone So We All Get Home.” 

Together, we explore the challenges highway workers face—like distracted driving and speeding—and the steps PennDOT is taking to improve safety. From automated speed enforcement and zipper barriers to strategic detours and collaboration with law enforcement through efforts like Operation Yellow Jacket, the discussion emphasizes shared responsibility in keeping work zones safe for everyone. 

Transcript

Rich Barcaskey: [00:15 - 00:32] Hello everyone and welcome to Constructing Connections. My name is Rich Barcaskey Executive Director of Constructors Association and your host. With me today is Jason Zang the District Executive for PennDOT District 11. Welcome, Jason. 

Jason Zang: [00:32 – 00:33] Hi, Rich. Thanks for having me.  

Rich Barcaskey: [00:32 – 00:33] As you may know, Jason is responsible for the planning and supervising of the state highway system in District 11. District 11 covers the counties of Allegheny, Beaver, and Lawrence. With the new construction season getting underway in the region, the public is taking an interest in what roads will be under construction. However, we here at CAWP are most interested in keeping construction workers safe when they are working in the highway construction zones. One way we do this is to celebrate National Work Zone Awareness Week, an annual spring campaign held at the start of the highway construction season which encourages safe driving through highway work zones. This year, National Work Zone Awareness Week will take place from April 21st through April 25th, and the theme is Respect the Zone So We All Get Home. As part of this important event, we wanted to check in with Jason Zang to talk about the steps that PennDOT District 11 is taking to slow down motorists traveling through highway work zones. So Jason, question for you is, Why is National Work Zone Awareness Week important and what does it mean for PennDOT? 

Jason Zang: [01:49 - 02:55] Yeah, Rich. I mean, it's like it's it serves, I think, is an important reminder. If you're if you're not talking about if you're not talking about this, then it's not going to be in people's minds. So we do this. We do this with our internal department force workers where we have safety stand down days. And it's the same thing where it's just a pause. Let's talk about safety. Let's get it. It's like a reset. Let's get it in everybody's heads. And it's just similar to like, in the wintertime, you know, that first snowstorm is always like chaos because people forget how to drive in the winter. And it's like, okay, now we get into construction season. And now the work zones start to pop up back on the roads. And it's really important if we're not out there talking about it. then people aren't going to be thinking about it. So try to get ahead of it, get it into their heads. We also do a very big construction overview that we did a couple of weeks ago. Again, just to start preparing people, even subconsciously in their minds as they're driving, they can be expecting to see work zones and to slow down and to pay attention. 

Rich Barcaskey: [02:56 – 03:35] Great. And that's a great point that it is like winter travel that you go through spring, summer, fall, you forget about traveling in icy conditions, snowy conditions. So it's the same thing with highway work zones. Suddenly they're there and you just have to remind the public that they're going to pop up. That's why it's always interesting that people are mostly concerned about what roads are under construction, what detours there will be, but it's also important to let them know that they need to slow down in work zones. From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges that workers face in work zones? 

Jason Zang:  [03:35 – 04:42] In order of importance, probably your most critical, I'm holding my cell phone in my hand and waving it because if you could see it, I think that is maybe the number one thing that we battle in construction on our roadways is distracted drivers. People are on their phones, reading texts, doing whatever. I think speed is another big factor. And I mean, it's understandable. The cars just keep getting nicer. The sound systems are better. They're quieter. They're faster. And people don't even realize that they're going so fast. And so distracted drivers, people on their phones, and then the speed, number two, The other thing is, you know, we've got a lot of new people out there in our industry, a lot of younger people, newer. And in PennDOT, we've got a lot of new inspectors, we've got a lot of new equipment operators on our end, and just experience. They just don't have the experience working around that kind of equipment. Large equipment, lots of moving parts on the job, lots of distracted people driving past the job, through the job. So those are the biggest things to me. 

Rich Barcaskey: [04:43 – 05:00] Are there any particular work zones in your district, District 11, where safety has been a major concern? Obviously, safety in work zones is a concern all across Pennsylvania, including District 11, but are there certain ones that present bigger challenges in this area? 

Jason Zang: [05:00 – 07:07] Yeah, Rich. I mean, one of the things that comes to mind, like the top things that come to mind in general, are any kind of work zone or operation that doesn't have a long-term set up or anything that doesn't have a barrier that's protecting the workers. So like a moving operation, something as simple as line painting, or we've done a lot of joint repair contracts in our district where we're out on the interstate at night, people are going even faster, and it's hard to put those physical barriers in place to protect the workers. So those sorts of things where it's a moving operation, you have crash trucks, but you do have limited physical barriers to protect people. and it's at night, it's dark. Things like garbage pickup for us, line painting. I'm just trying to point out there that it is these kind of simpler, less complex type projects that can sometimes be the most dangerous. And then in our district, just over the last couple of years, we've done a lot of work on I-79. And one of those projects just a little bit north of our district office here, north of the parkway, is a concrete preservation type project with some bridge work and a lot of delineators out there. We just worked being done in a center lane with traffic on either side of it, just difficult things like that. Another project that comes to mind is a bridge project. The McKees Rocks Bridge was a very challenging project for us because very long bridge. We reduced it from three lanes down to two lanes with a barrier and now we created a bit of a cattle chute type situation for drivers and there's emergency services involved that trying to use the bridge so just we work through all those issues and really partnered with our contractors I think really well we utilize new technology and instances there to help facilitate some of the the operations that needed to go on but those are those are To me, those are the examples. Again, things that where we don't have that physical protection is really where I get the most concern. 

Rich Barcaskey: [07:08 – 08:02] That's great. And your point about too, about having new employees out there. So new workers, new PennDOT employees, new consultants or inspectors. Usually when you have a new employee, the things you have to worry about is where do you park? um where's the lunch or you know where's the lunch room where's the uh which how do i get to the bathroom when you're working on a construction zone it's a very definitive area and it is extremely dangerous if you go accidentally into the zone, and also you have to spend a lot of time looking and making sure you're aware of what's going on around you. So that's a really good point is that new employees have the greatest exposure. What initiatives has PennDOT implemented to improve safety for workers and also for drivers in work zones throughout the region? 

Jason Zang: [08:03 – 10:10] I think, Rich, a big one, and this is a statewide initiative between PennDOT and the Turnpike, And I think a lot of people are aware of it as the speed, the automated speed enforcement. And I think that's been huge across the board for all of, I mean, for all the districts and the turnpike. And of course that took legislation, so that's a bit more challenging anytime you have to require legislation. But some other things that we've done, especially here in District 11, you see the zipper barrier being used now. We've been pretty much mandating in our contracts that that the workers must be protected with a barrier. And sometimes you can accomplish that without the zipper barrier with just putting, placing the standard type barrier. But on our jobs where we're allowing additional lane restrictions at night, like on parkway work where we have to be off the road by 6 a.m. because of traffic volumes, the zipper barrier has been working really well for us to just give us that lane when we need it and then push it back. and it's quick and it's efficient. And it comes at a great cost though. On the Parkway East, it came with a million dollar price tag. And to me, that just demonstrates the district's, our commitment to worker safety is we're willing to invest the money into that. Another thing that we've been doing in our district is we've been doing a lot more detours, closures, full closures with detours. Over the last few years, we have found that not only does it make it much, much safer for the workers, but it makes it safer for the public. And it also helps them to understand the complexity of the projects. When we have various restrictions happening every day, every other weekend, and changing daily, it's hard and it's confusing for people to keep up with the project. So let's close the bridge down for a month. Let's close the bridge down for two months. Let's close the road for two weeks, whatever it happens to be. And we allow the contractor to get in there, get the work done safer without traffic passing by them. Those are some things that we've been doing, and actually, I think it is really enhancing the worker safety. 

Rich Barcaskey: [10:10 – 10:43] I think that's important, too, is the detours that are implemented. The purpose is not to disrupt people's lives. It's actually, hopefully, to save people's lives with the barriers. So one of the things that sometimes you see, sometimes you don't, depends on the work zone and where it is. You will see a state police or a policeman trying to regulate the area. How do you at PennDOT collaborate with law enforcement to make motorists aware that a work zone is approaching? 

Jason Zang: [10:44 – 12:35] Well, so the one thing that we do is we are going to have our work zone safety event press press media event where I will be there, our ADE for construction Doug Thompson will be there and we will be talking to the media with representatives from the state police with us and they will also talk to the public to the media about the importance of slowing down and work zones and staying less distracted. We also utilize off-duty, we call them off-duty uniformed police officers on just about every one of our projects where we pay them. Local police forces on the projects depending on where they are, what municipality they're in. Interstate projects, we utilize the state police to be present. So just that red and blue blinking light ahead always slows the public down. So it is extremely, extremely helpful to have them. And then I think a really good thing that we do, and we do this as much as we can. We did it last year. We're going to do it again this year, is what we call Operation Yellow Jacket. It's been around for a while, where we take the state police and we put them into our foreman trucks, our PennDOT foreman trucks with a radar detector. And they can basically, they're hidden there, and they can issue citations. And that gets out, the word gets out to the public, and hopefully anytime they see a PennDOT truck, They would slow down because they might think it's the police in there. So lots of different ways and we stay in close communication basically with the state police especially. And all of our, we definitely utilize and appreciate the local police department's help on our projects. And we realize it is challenging. They're all facing manpower, labor power issues, but they do help us out greatly and it's a huge value to us in our workforce. 

Rich Barcaskey: [12:35 – 13:13] That's fantastic. And definitely, there's nothing that slows you down more than seeing some police lights in the distance or even behind you sometimes. Yep. So, for our listeners, if you want to find out more about how you can participate with the Association in celebrating National Work Zone Awareness Week, please go to CAWP's website, which is CAWP.org. Jason, we really appreciate you sitting down with us to talk about highway construction work zone safety and the importance of National Work Zone Safety Awareness Week. Thank you very much. 

Jason Zang: [13:14 –13:20] Thanks again, Rich, for having me. It's my pleasure, and this is an important topic always can make time for safety. Thank you. 

Rich Barcaskey: [13:20 – 13:30] My name is Rich Barcaskey Executive Director of Constructors Association, and thank you for tuning into CAWP's Constructing Connections.