For the past two months, Phil Shober's commute has been a nightmare.

Traveling Route 222 between his home in Reinholds and his job in Lancaster, he's endured backups that lasted as long as an hour and a half, with traffic down to one lane in each direction.

But what really angered him wasn't the traffic jams, it was that he saw so few construction workers.

"A few weeks ago I saw two or three guys in yellow vests, with mini-jackhammers," said Shober, a vice president with Wachovia Bank. "But for the most part, on any bright sunny day these last couple of months, you wouldn't see anybody."

Last week the lane restrictions on Route 222 were lifted as the initial phase of the $11.6 million project, funded with federal stimulus money, wrapped up. PennDOT says it hears Shober loud and clear. It's heard dozens of similar complaints loud and clear.

"We've been beaten over the head since August on this project with some of the harshest criticism, and some of the angriest people I've ever seen," said Greg Penny, a PennDOT spokesman. He calls the Route 222 project "one of the most problematic" he's ever been involved with.

Part of the problem may rest with the stimulus - officially the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - itself.

The Route 222 project, originally planned for next spring, was close to "shovel-ready" when the stimulus package was approved in February. "We were able to take this job and move it up," said Penny, but "we probably could have taken a closer look at how it would affect people," and at alternatives to minimize disruptions.

"We could have tightened the time-frame up," he said. "That might have been considered if this hadn't been rushed into the pipeline," he said.

PennDOT asked the contractor, Reading Materials Inc., of Skippack, to devote more resources to the project, said Penny. But the contractor has met its deadlines and adhered to the contract specifications. "They offered to work four 10-hour days, so people would see them during the morning and afternoon rush hours," said Penny. Previously, some work had been done overnight; other employees worked eight-hour shifts, sometimes beginning early in the morning so that they would be gone by the afternoon rush hour.

Penny said Reading Materials officials told PennDOT that the only way the company could devote more workers to the project was if PennDOT came up with more money.

John Goehler, project manager for Reading Materials, did not return a phone message seeking comment. The company is a subsidiary of Haines & Kibblehouse Inc., of Philadelphia; a message left with that firm's public relations office was also not returned.

Single lanes
The project commenced in late August and resulted in a single lane both northbound and southbound between the Oregon Pike exit and just south of the Ephrata exit. During the morning and evening rush, traffic backlogged not just on Route 222 itself, but on nearby arteries like Route 272, slowing progress to a crawl.

Improvements in the project include concrete patching of the roadway, new shoulders, sawing and sealing of joints and guide rail updates. In part as a response to complaints, PennDOT created a Web site for the project at penndot8.com/projects/us_222, listing information about the project.

Penny said the "controlling factor" was two bridges at either end of the construction zone. Concrete work on the bridges forced the contractor to restrict traffic to a single lane around the clock until the work was completed. But once motorists got past the bridges, "Then you've got people driving two to three miles, not seeing anyone, and their blood pressure's going up," Penny said.

Penny worries that the public may have developed a negative impression of the stimulus act because of the slow progress on Route 222.

"Here you have signs touting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and when people are driving through and saying 'where are the workers?' We were concerned about the perception there," Penny said.

When work resumes in the spring, he said, steps will be taken to speed it along. But some of those steps might sacrifice durability for convenience.

"We still have another bridge to do, and we've made a decision to go to quick-cure concrete," Penny said. "It can be done at night, and won't interfere with [traffic] during the day," he said. But Penny said some "old salts" believe it may ultimately cost taxpayers more money, because the contractor will have to pay people to set up single-lane restrictions at night and take them down at daybreak. In addition, the quick-cure concrete simply isn't as durable and may need to be replaced sooner than regular concrete.

"On Route 222, we're dealing with concrete that's 40 years old, and you usually don't expect to get that much life out of concrete," Penny said. "Maybe we should rebuild the whole thing, but the money's just not there."

So instead, "Over the past five or six years, as money has become available, we've gone out and done what we could. ... But if you're a commuter between Lancaster and Reading, this has been a torturous route to take."

Busy highway
Shober concurs. Penny provided him with figures showing that Route 222 north carries 29,000 vehicles a day, 222 South carries 21,000 vehicles daily.

"If you figure it takes at least a half an hour for each of those cars to get through the construction zone, think of the productive hours that are wasted every single day," said Shober.

"If this happens again in the spring, I'll move. I can't take it anymore," he said.

"This project could have gotten done sooner."

Gil Smart is Associate Editor for the Sunday News. E=mail  him at gsmart@lnpnews.com .