KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Area college students are spending their summer on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, but they're not traveling; they're interning.
Kayla Franchetti says she's having a unique summer, even if it's not always easily understood.
"I told a couple of people over the summer, 'I have an internship with the Turnpike,'" she said. "Multiple times, the reaction is, 'Oh, are you collecting tolls?' And I was like, 'Um, actually, no!'"
Franchetti, a junior studying industrial engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, reminds people that the Turnpike no longer has toll collectors. In fact, during her internship, she's seen the demolition of several toll booths as the highway moves to open-road tolling.
"As an industrial engineer, I'm big on efficiency," she said. "I think one of the coolest things is that at the beginning of the summer, you had a fully standing toll booth at Wyoming Valley. And now I drove through there on my way to work, and it's completely gone."
During his internship, Penn State sophomore Pranjal Majumdar has been shadowing the inspection staff at the widening of the Northeast Extension from two lanes to three.
"You're meeting a lot of new people. You're seeing the scale to which these projects are being built," he said.
Samantha "Sam" McHugh, a junior studying electrical engineering at Widener University, is exploring microgrids to generate electricity. She's also interested in inductive charging, to charge EVs as they ride the Turnpike.
"The Turnpike does have a goal of being the first fully sustainable superhighway by 2040. And microgrids would definitely be able to give us the option to do that," McHugh said. "Definitely one thing that I've learned about myself this summer is that I am passionate about renewable energy. And that is something that I do want to consider doing."
The students are among about 20 interns learning the Turnpike from the inside this summer.