Traffic calming on the pike seems within reach
Springfield Township commissioners are hoping the latest study of traffic on Bethlehem Pike will be definitive.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission has selected the pike, which bisects Erdenheim and Flourtown, as the subject of a traffic-calming study later this year, Commissioner Doug Heller said Monday.
The Springfield Township administration will hold a preliminary meeting Feb. 19 to select a local committee that will work with the planning commission. The members of the committee will be chosen from the Bethlehem Pike Streetscape Steering Committee and the Capital Improvements Committee of the Flourtown Erdenheim Enhancement Committee, Township Manager Don Berger said.
Township staff, members of the Springfield Township Police Department, and representatives from other interested organizations, such as Peco, will also work with the planning commission, Berger said.
"Could we study Bethlehem Pike any more?" Commissioner Robert Gillies exclaimed Monday during the board of commissioners' workshop meeting.
"Once more," Heller replied. "This time for real."
The most recent traffic study became part of the Flourtown Erdenheim Enhancement Association's Vision Plan for Bethlehem Pike in 2003. The Vision Plan recommended methods to reduce speeding and the lane-to-lane weaving drivers do to pass parked and left-turning vehicles, but none was put into effect.
At the time, township officials said the improvements would have to wait until the state completed the development of Route 309 since the pike would be a detour route during construction.
With the involvement of the planning commission, Heller said, the improvements will proceed despite the work on 309, although the timetable remained tentative.
"It will happen," he said.
The process will begin with a conceptual study by the commission and, either concurrently or soon after, an engineering study by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Heller said in a follow-up e-mail.
"The two studies can be completed by year's end, if everything goes well and all the preliminary reports are completed to everyone's satisfaction," he continued. "But sometimes it all takes considerably longer. We'll start to have a better idea of how long the project may take following or meeting later this month."
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission conducts two traffic-engineering projects each year, one in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey, Heller said, and it has known of the problems along Bethlehem Pike in part through the efforts of former township Commissioner Kathleen Lunn.
A member of the planning commission's selection panel inspected the pike in December and described the parking in curbside traffic lanes as outrageous, Heller said.
The most disorderly sections of the pike, from a traffic standpoint, are found around Wawa, where the driveways of several businesses empty onto the roadway, and at Starbucks, where Bysher and College avenues create a dogleg intersection, Heller said.