Lehigh Tunnel

The Lehigh Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels that carries the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension (Interstate 476) under Blue Mountain north from U.S. Route 22 in the Lehigh Valley to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area between mileposts 70.7 to 71.5.

It has an unusual appearance, as the original (northbound) tunnel is rectangular, as it used the older dig-and-blast technique, while the new tube is oval, having been constructed using the New Austrian tunnelling method.

Howard M. Sexton, a 70-year-old truck driver from New Jersey, was killed in the southbound Lehigh Tunnel on February 21, 2018, when an electrical conduit broke free from the tunnel's ceiling and fell through the windshield of his truck, striking him in the head.

[9] In a preliminary report issued on May 1, 2018, the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that a 10-foot-long section of conduit fell into the path of Sexton's truck after the steel support system for the conduits, which were suspended from the apex of the tunnel arch directly over the travel lanes, failed.

The tunnel had last been inspected in 2016, at which time an inspector found evidence of corrosion on several of the steel support straps.

Lehigh Tunnel northbound entrance
Cross-sectional diagram of the southbound tunnel