How can Allentown fix inner city traffic flow?
I’ve worked for The Morning Call for more than four years, and I’ve used MacArthur Road and Seventh Street to commute to the paper’s Allentown office for most of that time. Yet somehow, I don’t think I’ve once driven into the city along that route without getting caught at the light at Seventh and Tilghman.
This amounts to little more than an inconvenience, but it’s one I’ve probably encountered about 1,000 times. An added inconvenience is the light is out of sync with the lights south of it on Seventh. That means when you get stuck at this intersection, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get caught at Seventh and Allen.
I’ve gotten a lot of complaints about this light and others over the last few years, but I’ve not written about it because it’s not an especially dangerous issue. Unlike on American Parkway and Front Street or portions of Cedar Crest Boulevard, the traffic doesn’t back up here or create potentially dangerous scenarios where fast-moving cars are suddenly rushing into a wall of congestion.
Craig Messinger, Allentown’s director of public works, said many of these problems boil down to two issues — pedestrians and the prioritization of roads.
Unlike many of the nearby townships, large swaths of Allentown are designed to be walkable. It’s easy to get around on foot through most of Center City, and there are shops, restau
rants, businesses and public transit stops that people walk to. Traffic lights in these areas need to give pedestrians an opportunity to cross the street, Messinger said. That may require holding up traffic at times along some of the busier corridors.
As far as prioritization, our transportation grid is designed with a hierarchy of roads, and state roads higher on the food chain get more funding and attention because they carry more traffic. Unsurprisingly, traffic lights are programmed to favor these roads, which also tend to have faster speed limits. Forcing them to stop too often creates bottlenecks and can create more opportunity for accidents. That may not provide much solace to people on local roads who are stuck in traffic at a light, especially when there’s a difficult turn involved.
The good news is the city is taking steps to address it. Messinger said the city is trying to modernize by replacing traffic lights with adaptive signals. These improvements add traffic cameras to intersections that record how much traffic are at lights and tweaks the lengths of stops to best address congestion. Improvements along the 15th Street corridor, which include the adaptive lights among other changes, are underway. Changes along Sixth, Seventh and Eighth streets are scheduled to start this year.
“We’re hoping by the end of the year to have adaptive signals at 75 intersections out of the 200 signalized intersections we have,” Messinger said.
That problematic intersection of Seventh and Tilghman is one of the lights eventually due for an upgrade, thankfully. way streets, but not without a price. Two-way roads need twice the signage, and traffic signals need to direct both lanes of direction. Completely upgrading an intersection, including adding polls with arms masts and the necessary anchoring, can cost up to $500,000 for a single light. PennDOT would also have to sign off on any changes to the traffic signals, he said.
I wouldn’t expect the city to proceed on projects like this unless there’s significant state or federal aid attached. That’s a high cost for any municipality, especially for a city that just hiked property taxes 27%.
Two-way traffic would also require the city to clear snow in both directions in the winter, Messinger said, which would increase clean up times. Roads wide enough for two-way traffic may face issues when snow banks chew into some of that space. And not to pick on the Queen City, but it’s recent track record with snow removal doesn’t exactly inspire confidence as it is.
That’s not to suggest this can’t be done. Easton converted Fourth Street to two-way traffic a couple of years ago, and a PennDOT study is examining other streets around Center Square for potential conversions. Dave Hopkins, Easton’s director of Public Works, said the early details look promising; he expected results to be released publicly sometime this fall.
“When we converted Fourth Street, it was really a success. Emergency services like it, creates another route around the circle,” he said. wanted to revisit a handful of items.
First, some good news. PennDOT has made the process of getting Real ID somewhat easier than it was a few months ago. PennDOT previously required applicants provide unlaminated Social Security cards. That is no longer the case. So if you stuck with the protective plastic covering on your Social Security card as a precaution, you don’t need to get a new one if you want a Real ID. I missed this slight change in policy last week and wanted to correct the record here. Thank you to the readers and callers who reached out.
Secondly, I’ve gotten complaints from readers who applied for Real ID only to discover their birth certificate isn’t recognized by the state. Apparently, many hospitals provided documentation to parents that were not state-recognized birth certificates. People applying for the Real ID need the state document with a raised seal.
Lastly, I wanted to emphasize that getting Real ID is optional. A U.S. passport will get you everywhere a Real ID driver’s license can and let you fly overseas, something the driver’s license can’t do. The difference is the passport is more expensive, will likely take longer to receive and won’t need to be renewed as frequently. Another key difference is most people don’t carry their passports around, so if you suddenly need to catch a flight or go to a federal courthouse — unlikely for most people, but not unheard of — you may find yourself out of luck if you only have a passport.
Tom Shortell can be reached at 610-820-6168 or tshortell@mcall .com.