(Credit: Dan Sokil – MediaNews Group)
A traffic study meant to enhance road safety in Lansdale could kick off soon.
Police Chief Mike Trail gave an update earlier this month of when that study could kick off, and where they’ll look first.
“We are going to break the study down into three geographic areas. The first area is going to be between Norway (Drive), North Wales Road, Main Street, and Knapp (Road): Lombardy, Sycamore, those are the streets that are getting traffic off of North Wales Road during rush hour,” he said.
For the past several years, council and its public safety committee have heard complaints about traffic throughout town, and about drivers speeding and ignoring stop signs on the town’s side streets, along with gripes about congestion on Main and Broad streets related to the rail crossing at the center of town.
Police have said recent additions of new officers could help them study speeding and congestion concerns, and in early February Trail showed a formal route his department had identified with the town’s traffic engineer, consisting of Norway, Sycamore and Lombardy Drives, Laurel Lane, Hancock Street and Delaware, Derstine and Columbia Avenues, all of which drivers have been observed using to get as a shortcut to get around backups on Main Street.
In mid-February council authorized the town’s traffic engineer to perform the study, and Trail gave an update during the April 3 public safety committee meeting, saying the traffic engineer and police will focus on the easternmost part of the study area first.
“Following that, we’re going to move over to the area that is south of Main Street: that’s Oakland, Laurel, Hancock, all the way down to south Broad Street,” he said.
“That’ll be the second phase of the study, and then the third will be the full west ward: Broad to Valley Forge Road, Derstine to Whites,” Trail said.
Police have one speed data collection device capable of collecting the study data, and have secured a quote from an outside vendor to collect all of the data for about $6,000, or could buy one more device at a lower cost and have it available for future studies, the chief told the committee. Each device would be stationed at a location for about one week, with a total estimated time of roughly nine weeks to do the whole study area, and Trail said his officers are already studying crash data for the same intersections.
“We’re hoping by fall, latest, to have a report to review, and recommendations to go with that,” he said.
Mayor Garry Herbert noted that timeline will be just in time for talks about 2025: “in the fall, we’ll start talking about our budget, and any solutions this (study) identifies that can be part of our conversations.”
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