It was all the milling machine's fault.

If it wasn't for the machine breaking down Tuesday morning, Lehigh Asphalt Paving Company's employees would have been done with work by 6 a.m. and traffic wouldn't have been brought to a standstill between Tamaqua and Hometown as motorists were trying to get to work and students were trying to get to school.Instead, the equipment broke down in an area of the road where it would have been dangerous for workers and motorists alike to try to keep two lanes of traffic open.Employees worked as quickly as possible to restore the flow of traffic, but it wasn't easy, and the jam lasted about 90 minutes. There was anger and frustration to spare.Lehigh Asphalt is based in Tamaqua, so company officials and employees are familiar with the traffic patterns between Tamaqua and Hometown. That's why they elected to try to complete most of the work associated with the reconstruction project during the evening and overnight hours. But, things don't always go as planned.The $3.4 million Pennsylvania Department of Transportation project calls for base repairs, milling, patching, updating the guide rails and replacing concrete islands, signs and pavement markings on Route 309 between Rose Street in Tamaqua to the Lincoln Drive area in Hometown.As the project proceeds, work will be done between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 p.m., with the only expected exception to be when it's time to pour concrete. That work will need to be done during the daylight hours. Even then, project managers expect to be able to keep one lane of traffic open in each direction.Everyone involved hopes the equipment will cooperate with the plans.