Liberty Tunnels qualify as city's biggest ashtray

Link to September 11 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

Excerpt:

More than 75,000 vehicles a day travel the 1.1-mile-long tunnels, a lifeline between the city and the South Hills.

Signals at both ends result in stop-and-go traffic and, often, long, slow queues. As a result, many smokers light up inside the tunnel, and when they're finished, they throw the butts out the window.

Large fans used to blow motor-vehicle exhaust fumes out of the tunnel also sweep some of the butts outside.

Other butts roll down Saw Mill Run and West Liberty Avenue ramps at the southern end, collecting at the bottom at the curbs or around traffic islands. The same thing happens at the McArdle Roadway-Liberty Bridge intersection.

While tossing cigarette butts on public property constitutes littering and could be subject to a fine, police rarely, if ever, enforce the law.

So many cigarettes accumulate in drains inside the tunnels that the grates have to be removed at least once a year and the butts have to be sucked out by a truck-mounted vacuum. The annual butt cleaning costs PennDOT about $6,000.