Pennsylvania Town Grapples With Truck Congestion
For residents along Old Berwick Road in Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania, time keeps on turning — but it seems the tractor-trailers clogging their neighborhood are not.
The Sugarloaf Township Board of Supervisors held a special meeting at Sugarloaf Township Fire Hall on Aug. 30, inviting two representatives from Barry Isett and Associates engineering firm to discuss preliminary plans for helping repair the traffic discord caused by the Pilot Truck Stop along Route 93 and Interstate 80.
“We’ve known this has been an issue since the early ’90s,” township Supervisor Rick Weaver said, addressing a crowd of more than 50 attendees.
“The fact of the matter is that Pilot exists, and we don’t have a magic wand to make it go away or to make the problem disappear. This isn’t going to be a fix-all, we have to just try to do something.”
Residents have been complaining about the traffic in the area of Old Berwick Road and Route 93 for nearly 25 years, with the earliest recorded traffic studies being completed in 1993, according to the background study conducted by Christine Troxell of Barry Isett and Associates.
“The interstate [I-80] was put in place there in the mid-1960s, with the state coming in and condemning properties and right-of-ways to do so,” she began.
“Then you have Pilot being constructed in the early ’90s, and by ’98 we already have record of a PennDOT traffic survey being completed in that area.”
The plans for the improvement fall under three preliminary ideas — widen the existing road, completely reroute Old Berwick Road or construct a new road.
The kicker? The $750,000 LSA grant secured by Red Truck Development to fund the project requires “the work being done is to improve the pre-existing surface of Old Berwick Road,” according to Troxell.
Throughout the 35-minute presentation, many members of the crowd grew weary of the disconnect between the general community “and those who live it every day,” according to audience member Tony Gardy.
“I just don’t understand why we have to share that road with the trucks,” he said.
“What we really want is our own entrance so we don’t have to deal with the trucks ... to get into our residences.”
The proposed idea, however, would not allow for construction of a new road, due to the limitations on the LSA grant.
The multi-phase plan proposed by Barry Isett and Associates would call for the widening of Old Berwick Road into three lanes, creating a center turn lane to allow the tractor-trailers making turns to not impede the oncoming flow of traffic.
“Right now, the way it is configured, you have trucks completely blocking the flow of traffic,” Troxell explained. “With the construction of a center lane, it would act as a buffer zone.”
Many residents were dissatisfied with the proposal.
“All that center lane will be is another place for trucks to park in the middle of the road.” Gardy said.
“They already treat it like it’s a parking lot, all that does is create a three-lane highway in the middle of our street.”
Other residents were concerned that without the construction of a separate entrance, the traffic flow from Pilot would just continue to spill over into their residential community.
The engineers and supervisors both attempted to assuage the crowd’s concerns, despite the uproar.
“We know this isn’t an easy fix,” Weaver said. “We have to try to work in conjunction with PennDOT, Pilot, Red Truck and ourselves to create a solution.”
The LSA funding also poses another issue — an expiration date of 2018.
“Everything is still up in the air, but we want to do something to try and fix this rather than waiting even longer,” Weaver said.
“Something is better than nothing.”
