PennDOT is actively coordinating with the municipalities regarding traffic calming opportunities. Please note that while sidewalks would be installed as part of a PennDOT project, maintenance of the sidewalks would be municipal responsibility and typically municipalities pass maintenance responsibilities on to the adjacent property owners.
I asked this similar question during the meeting: I am concerned about increased traffic on West Highland Ave. Many currently exit Rt 1 N onto Hulmeville Ave vs Bellevue Ave to avoid the Penndel train tracks. (Hulmeville Ave has a bridge over the tracks) With the removal of this exit people will exit onto Pine St and as they head to Penndel will exit the roundabout onto West Highland and cut through the neighborhood to Hulmeville Ave. This street has no sidewalks and lots of children and neighborhood foot traffic. The response was the road has stop signs.
It is anticipated that traffic will be split between the proposed southern and proposed northern interchanges depending on where they are coming from and where they are heading in Penndel. It is anticipated that the traffic would split between the two interchanges to use either the Hulmeville Road underpass or the Hulmeville Road overpass to get to Business Route 1 if they anticipate their travel conflicting with trains at the Pine Street at-grade crossing. It is anticipated that neither of these alternative routes would be a significant increase over their existing usage.
Slide 26 – The ramp from 413 S to RT 1. How many drivers will use this ramp? If they are coming from Newtown, they will head towards the Maple Ave interchange. Why is this ramp necessary? Same thing with the 413 N to RT 1 S ramp. If I’m in Penndel, I’m not going to go north to this interchange, I’m going to take Business 1 towards Bensalem. This is massively overbuilt infrastructure which will not see the usage it was constructed for.
JMT completed an origin-destination analysis to determine how many vehicles would be expected to take the proposed SR 413 interchange. It is anticipated that 255 vehicles would take the northbound interchange ramp to exit US 1, and 355 vehicles would take the southbound interchange ramp to exit Route 1 during the PM Peak hour. These volumes are similar to the volumes that the existing slip ramps near Bellevue Avenue currently experience.
While I didn’t get to watch the webinar, I see that this interchange doesn’t have an official rendering like slide 13. So I ask this, why traffic lights? Why not a dog bone or double/twin roundabout? The town desires to keep traffic move slowly through the area. Using traffic lights to divide the traffic into platoons encourages speeding and is inefficient. In a world ruined by cars and infrastructure, it’s a shame to see even more houses demoed for no reason.
The PA 413 (Pine Street) interchange has a rendering as can be seen in the color roll plot on the project website. Roundabouts were investigated for the interchange; however, single lane roundabouts caused traffic backups onto US 1 and two-lane roundabouts would have required more property acquisition and would not have performed any better than traffic signals from a safety standpoint. As noted, traffic signals require less property acquisition than a two-lane roundabout and do not require any additional total property acquisitions.
Instead of huge concrete islands, can small trees be planted here for a blvd appearance?
PennDOT is currently coordinating with Langhorne Borough to determine the traffic calming option to be included with the project. As such, details such as median treatments have yet to be determined but will be coordinated with the Borough when appropriate.
I wanted to express my opposition to the removal of the access road in front of my home. For added context I live on North Street. I’ve been on this block for 20 years and the access road has enabled us to have gatherings at our residence with ease. We are the only street along the project area that is not suitable for parking cars. I have a small driveway and no garage, removal of the access road in front of North Street would make parking impossible for events that we may have. I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope that this will be taken into consideration. In addition, if a sound barrier were to be considered for in front of North Street would it be possible for them to be transparent so that our view would not be obstructed and lead to the street having an enclosed feeling?
The preferred alternative removes the portion of the service road parallel to North Street. This area will be used for stormwater conveyance in the build condition along with a potential multi-use trail. A traffic noise study is being completed for the project in accordance with PennDOT’s Publication 24: Project Level Highway Traffic Noise Handbook. If warranted, feasible, and reasonable, noise walls will be proposed as part of this project. In areas where noise walls are proposed, the benefited members of the community will have a vote on whether to accept the noise wall. A simple majority will determine whether a potential proposed noise wall will be incorporated into the project. PennDOT will need to consider whether a transparent noise wall may be included as an option prior to the property owner vote. Similar transparent noise walls typically require more maintenance cost and can pose issues for birds.
The live streamed meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. on 4/23 never happened. The fact that the virtual meeting was never conducted is disappointing as information is tough to come by.
The virtual public meeting occurred on 4/23/2025 from 7pm to 10pm and was attended by 168 individuals. A pdf of the presentation and a recording of the presentation have been uploaded to the project website. Visuals of the current preferred alternative are posted to the project website and are up-to-date. Additional information will be posted as the Environmental Assessment (EA) process continues culminating in the publication of the EA document later this year.
I could not access the virtual meeting and I did not see the Section 4(f) Resources to comment.
The recording of the presentation along with the presentation slides have been posted to the project website. The public who were unable to access the live presentation can watch the recording to learn about the Section 4(f) resources.
I am concerned regarding the removal of the access road between Parkvale Ave and Hulmeville Road. I live on North Street and since our street is not wide enough for cars to park, we occasionally use the shoulder of the access road for additional parking when we have guests. Would it be possible to maintain the access road between these two streets so that we are still able to have more parking?
The preferred alternative removes portions of the service road parallel to North Street. This area will be used for stormwater conveyance and management in the build consition along with a potential multi-use trail.
All comments are from the perspective of a Langhorne Historic District property owner and resident. Expanding the highway at the expense and loss of quality of life for the residents around the project needs to clearly demonstrate some value based on the reality in 2025 not 2011. $150,000,000.00 is a LOT of taxpayer money to spend for a project that was started due to a safety issue in 2011. If people drove over the low median, build a tall median to prevent that. It will require significantly less tax money and time to solve the issue. Regarding the safety issue that was identified by presenters as the primary impetus for this 14 year old project. The presenters intentionally mislead the participants by saying specifically that there were many fatalities which drove this decision. When pressed the presenter admitted that there weren’t really fatalities but there were accidents, but admitted that the accidents weren’t in the affected area necessarily, but there have been accidents on Route 1. Why would we spend a huge amount of tax payer money, and potentially make small neighborhoods less safe when there is no clear evidence that the access roads are a problem. This project is a huge financial, safety, quality of life, and property value loss to the local residents impacted.
A previous alternative limited to providing a full width paved outside shoulder and concrete barriers along with closing the intermediate crossovers was strongly opposed by residents living along the service roads.
As clearly stated in the presentation (please see the recording posted to the project website for reference), the design team noted multiple fatalities along US 1 within the project corridor. In accordance with FHWA’s Vision Zero, any fatality is too many fatalities.
In addition, records show 588 crashes along US 1 within the project corridor over the past 6 years. Based on the safety analysis, the preferred alternative is anticipated to reduce crashes within the project corridor when compared to the future no build condition and when compared to other alternatives.