There was no detailed study done regarding property value impacts due to the construction; that is not typically part of an environmental assessment
This plan makes everyone who lives on the south side of Route 1, in the Parkland and Langhorne area, take East Highland Avenue. Is there going to be any improvement to this road (E. Highland Ave)? It is not the safest road to travel on as it has no shoulders, it’s hilly and has several sharp turns.
Specific to East Highland Avenue, that is beyond the project limits, so it’s really not being looked at directly. That can be obviously passed along to PennDOT for them to look at if it is a part of their network of roadways.
The reasons you give for the elimination of service roads, needs to weighed against the elimination. Their elimination will increase traffic onto Highland and Gilliam, impacting and affecting the quality of life, walking, children playing, noise quality and air pollution. Bringing traffic onto a road with houses on either side brings a greater danger to residents. How can you guarantee the same amount of traffic on these roads?
We are not guaranteeing the same amount of traffic; there will be an increase. However, the increase is local residential traffic of people who live in the houses along those roads or in the adjacent houses in neighborhoods that stem off those roads is the anticipated increase in traffic. So it’s not necessarily new people that are going through those roads. It’s residents going home and coming from home.
I understand the concern for the bikes and pedestrians using the service roads but they have other options. In addition, you are now pushing large amounts of traffic onto roads used by foot traffic daily. You may be able to restrict the use of the service roads if they are unsafe. Perhaps restricting the use of access roads of immediately adjacent to a 4 lane divided highway. Has this been considered?
The state does not restrict traffic onto state roads because it is the taxpayers’ right to use the roadway. The local municipalities are allowed to restrict truck size on their own roads.
Is PennDOT factoring all of Woods Services new/additional population/ residential properties in their master plan? Has PennDOT reviewed Woods Master Plan?
We go based on DVRPC’s regional traffic model and that accounts for development that they know about, not just potentialities. We have coordinated directly with Woods School. PennDOT does not review local developer master plans; they only look at the traffic impact studies. PennDOT does look at any permit requests for driveways and so forth.
Why do all those bridges need to be removed and replaced? Are they old? Falling apart? Too narrow? Why?
Most need to be replaced due to poor conditions. The West Interchange Road and Corn Crib Lane overpasses have piers or other factors that will conflict with the proposed US 1 improvement, such as removing the 16-foot-wide separation between the US 1 freeway and the service roads and necessitate their replacement. Additionally, all three of the overpasses do not meet vertical clearance requirements and have been struck by trucks in the past.
Where can the statistics on safety issues and fatalities on Rt 1, that are the impetus for this project, be found?
They will be in the technical files of the environmental assessment document that will be published later this year.
Has the recently approved housing development on the current Woods Properties been accounted for in your traffic estimates/numbers?
We used DVRPC’s growth rate, and they take into account development and other factors to determine that growth rate. The idea of that is to capture any development and any other factors that may increase trips in that area. We have reached out to the engineering firm for the developer to gather information on the potential impacts.
PennDOT’s crash report website does not show any fatalities or critical accidents at the SB Rt1 service road exit at Bellevue Ave. Why is the Cloverleaf at 213 necessary if there are no fatalities in this area? Please show this crash data so the public can see this data.
We are talking crashes holistically throughout the 2.5-mile corridor. I believe there have been 3 fatalities at least along Route 1 itself. It is not isolated where you have a fatality and you put in an interchange; the analysis does not work like that.
The reality is zero fatalities is FHWA’s goal, so we have to look at it more realistically and that means you can’t just cut pieces of the corridor out and put in an intersection. You have to look at the corridor as a whole. The safety analysis will be included in the technical files associated with the environmental assessment. So you’ll see all that backup data.
You said there were many fatal accidents in the area of the service roads of the limited access highways. When that occurs, you have the access road to keep traffic moving, albeit at a slow pace, to get around the crash. Under the current plans, all that traffic will be forced onto small side roads. That will be very dangerous for residents and inconvenient for motorists. And your one second delay, which I find unbelievable, goes way out the window.
So we’re not talking many fatalities. There are quite a few crashes out there. When a crash occurs along Route 1, there is no room for maneuverability on the main line; so, it automatically incurs a roadway closure of at least a lane, possibly two lanes and that diverts traffic onto the frontage road. At that point you do get cut through traffic of people trying to get around the service roads, going out through the neighborhoods in that case.
The roadway will be wider, so you’ll have two travel lanes on mainline Route 1 in each direction. You’ll have five foot inside shoulders and 12-14 foot outside shoulders. That makes it easier to actually move traffic around an accident or even get traffic or disabled vehicles off the roadway onto the shoulder to maneuver around the crash site.