Dangerous Route 309/Tilghman Street interchange is set to be replaced. A $24 million boost will help make sure it’s done quickly.

23/02/2024

Vehicles head east on Rt 78 (309 North) toward the Tilghman Street interchange in South Whitehall Township on Wednesday, May 2, 2018. /// (Harry Fisher / THE MORNING CALL )mc-nws-penndot-tip-public-forum

An effort to rebuild the challenging Route 309-Tilghman Street interchange in South Whitehall Township got a $24 million boost Wednesday to help make sure the work is done quickly.

The money is being added to the 2023-26 Transportation Improvement Program for the project, which will improve the cloverleaf interchange that was built in the late 1950s and features very short, or no acceleration lanes.

The Lehigh Valley Transportation Study Technical and Coordinating committees both voted Wednesday to approve moving the money from other projects.

It was introduced in two amendments that forwarded $400,000 for demolition work of buildings on the project site, while $23.6 million will be used to help cover construction, according to Jennifer Ruth from PennDOT District 5.

The project is on the Lehigh Valley Long-Range Transportation Plan’s short-range plan — for between 2024-28 — and will cost an estimated $73.3 million. The LVTS adopted the nearly $5 billion plan that covers about 500 projects over the next 25 years in November.

The funds voted on Wednesday will go toward the $73.3 million.

“The project is proposed to receive additional funds and this financial agility is crucial to the timely and effective completion of the 309/Tilghman Street interchange reconstruction project which is poised to significantly improve traffic flow and safety,” Ruth said.

The demolition portion will be used to remove properties the state purchased for the project and allow a Sunoco gas line to be relocated. The $400,000 was diverted from the Route 22 resurface project from 15th Street in South Whitehall to MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. The funding was redistributed because the funds were not needed after that project was completed, Ruth said.

The reconstruction will include replacing two bridges over Tilghman Street and Broadway along with rehabilitating the Route 309 culvert over Little Cedar Creek and making drainage improvements. Traffic lights will be installed at the end of the reconfigured ramps and synchronized with signals at Hausman and Parkway roads.

Funds diverted for the $23.6 million include $7.3 million from LVTS highway and bridge reserve; $7.5 million from Route 309 resurfacing; $466,000 from Route 611 repaving in southern Northampton County; about $1 million from Route 512 over Brush Meadow Creek in Bangor; $1.25 million from Route 22 improvements at Fullerton Street; $625,000 from the Fifth Street Bridge project in Whitehall; and $2.6 million from safety improvements from the Route 29 Shimersville Hill safety project in Upper Milford Township.

Some of those funds will not be needed for projects that have been completed, such as the Route 611 paving, while others do not yet need the funding, Ruth said.

The diversion of such a large amount drew some questions from the Coordinating Committee.

Committee Chair Rick Molchany said it would be beneficial to get advance notice on such changes, especially when it involves “an awful lot of money.”

“When we have those large changes,” said Molchany, who is the Lehigh County general services director, “I think it would be beneficial for us as a Coordinating Committee to get a heads-up on those large items that are either delayed due to the nature of the project, or completed with the large balance so that the committees can take a look at reassigning and knowing that the administrative actions and or the actions that require us to make changes will be voted on at a future meeting.”

Both committees approved the amendments and Northampton County Executive Lamont G. McClure provided the lone no vote. He said he was troubled that the switch in funding wasn’t included in a Transportation Improvement Plan update.

Another amendment to the Transportation Improvement Plan was approved for LANTA, which said it needs an additional $2.6 million for preventative maintenance activities. Funds were diverted from a federal preventative maintenance fund that was programmed for fiscal year 2023 — $2.08 million — and $522,000 that was to be used for a bus purchase.

Climate plan update

Committee members also were updated on a plan to fight climate change.

Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Director of Environmental Planning Susan Myerov presented several slides on the LVPC’s regional plan that was prepared with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant.

The LVPC received a $1 million federal award last year to help come up with the plan.

“Our plan includes strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector,” Myerov said. “The sector was selected as the focus for this particular plan as it was determined to be one of the largest sources of [greenhouse gas] emissions in the region. It’s also the area where we can have the greatest impact because it provides access to state and federal decarbonization funding streams, many of them created through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.”

Reduction measures include:

Integration of land use planning and transportation: A measure will be increasing transit ridership by 20% above current levels by 2030 and 40% by 2050.
Transition to clean low carbon/zero emission fuels: That includes increasing the development of alternative fuel vehicles of all types from the 2022 baseline figure. It would mean increasing the share of such vehicles to 9% by 2030 and 21% by 2050. Another goal is to increase the geographic distribution of alternative fuel stations in the region by 25% by 2030 and 40% by 2050.
Green infrastructure: Major highway corridors, including Interstate 78, Routes 22, 33, 309 and 378, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension, will have additional green spaces, enhanced native and non-invasive landscaping, tree canopy and nature-based stormwater management practices.
Transportation systems management and operations: Implementation of intelligent systems technology to reduce congestion, support uniform traffic controls and encourage trip planning technology applications.

These measures could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Lehigh Valley by 321,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

“This really represents a reduction from the 2021 transportation sector emission information by about 12% and these measures, coupled with improvements in clean fuel technologies and other climate sector emissions reduction measures will benefit our communities, our environment and our economy,” Myerov said.

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at [email protected].