POTTSTOWN PA – In the debate over the future of U.S. Route 422, its traffic congestion, and the loss of its surrounding open space, time has become both an enemy and an ally.
A woman reads information presented last week during meetings on the future of U.S. Route 422.
With each passing week, according to the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), the 25-mile Route 422 Corridor loses more of its rural character. Yet planners believe that, by sparking public discussion now about what might be done to avoid problems down the road – literally and figuratively – there will be enough time to stop or even reverse the trend.
And in just eight days since that discussion was most recently resumed, planners have already received a tentative but crucial editorial endorsement.
The current state of, and the time line for finding solutions to, mounting commuter woes on 422 were subjects of a public meeting last Tuesday (June 23, 2009) at Pottstown Middle School. The DVRPC event, and a similar one held the next day in Royersford, were called to ask for comments on a corridor master plan being created as a guide to the fix.
The tentative target date for its implementation, Montgomery County Assistant Planning Director Leo D. Bagley said, is 2013, four years away.
Bagley, who was among the meeting’s speakers, guessed it will take two years to determine which master plan components seem to be best for unclogging the highway, and win public approval for them. Another two years, he said, will be spent putting them in place.
That time line works in DVRPC’s favor, advocates say. It gives the organization the ability to further develop its primary website, 422Corridor.com, and other outreach efforts to convince voters of the merits of its recommendations.
But there’s a downside too. Until then, the corridor’s growth is anticipated to be “steady and strong” despite the current economy, DVRPC representative Jerry Coyne, another presenter, warned. “There are going to be plenty of needs,” Coyne said, but also, he added, “plenty of opportunities to do something about them.”
Coyne’s message was clear: in the intervening years, the slow-moving parking lot that increasingly characterizes 422 is likely to get even slower.
So far, public sentiment favors improving the highway and its interchanges, and extending commuter train service west from Norristown. Their combined cost: over a billion dollars. Again, Bagley said, time will play a role. It will take years to asemble financing for such projects, primarily in the form of bonds that would be repaid from money collected by turning 422 into a toll road.
The Mercury's offices in downtown Pottstown.
The controversial subject of 422′s tolling received an important boost Monday (June 29, 2009) when The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper gave it a tentative endorsement in an editorial published on its Opinions Page. It said, in part:
“As with so many other quality-of-life issues in our region, the old ways of dealing with them are not working anymore. There are simply more demands on infrastructure — Route 422 being the prime example — than tax dollars can handle. The distaste toward paying for something which was once free is understandable. But the necessity of addressing the issues of 422 remain.
“While the planning continues, the public and those who travel 422 might want to ponder one simple question: What is it worth to me to change Route 422 from a traffic nightmare to smooth travel?
“A toll doesn’t seem so bad after all.”
The opinion attracted a score of derisive online comments, and some support too. But as the newspaper of record for several municipalities lining the corridor, and geographically central to it, some believe The Mercury’s willingness to stick its neck out marks a valuable early victory for DVRPC. Will other publications follow?
Only time will tell.
Related:
- Notebook Worthy
- Growth, Planners Say, Is 422′s Growing Problem
- Tech Used To Draw For 422 Meetings
- Route 422 Toll Meetings Next Week
- 422 Repairs, Delays Start Tuesday
- 422 Proposal, Like Traffic, Creeps Ahead
- Got A Route 422 Idea? Time To Air It
- Train Service On The Front Burner Once More
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Really, we are to take the Mercury’s opinion on anything? Come now, isnt the newspaper who still resist putting out a decent web page? They have no believablitly when the talk turns to change.
I will restate a previous comment that PA missed the boat when it comes to getting federal money for infrastructure improvements. Much of the back up on 422 comes from the 363 interchange. If that were to go away and an optional route were constructed to meet up with 202, a major improvement to the 422 flow would take place. The other item is to have sections of the road as no change lanes. Each tap of the breaks because an overly aggressive drivers squeezing into the other lane slows traffic down. One last thing, keep the cops out of site during rush hour, all it does is created a bigger back up.
@Joe: I would not dismiss The Mercury’s ability to influence the Route 422 discussion. At the very least, it appeals to other area newspapers which, sooner or later, are certain to issue their own editorial opinions on the subject.
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
The Sanatoga Post, The Limerick Post, and The Pottstown Post
Mercury is wrong on this issue
Rt 422 is already payed for by the taxes we spend on gas, and registrations, licenses, as well as federal taxes.
The issue here is simple. Stop wasting monies on Electronic Billboards that cost millions, a surveillance system, and other waste, and spend the roadway monies on the roadway.
Sure we need a high speed rail system, but until there’s a way to get from the station at this end to your home, and from the station at the other end to your job site, and it’s convenient and comfortable, people will not ride the train to nowhere. Commuting needs to be examined as a total process, not just in parts. I mentioned it once before in a previous post. Easily charged and serviced Segway-type transports that can be run onto a rail car and then can off-load and run you to work will get people out of cars and into a multi-modal system. Short of that taxing us all to run commuter rail into KOP and Philadelphia will be a waste.
People do not ride trains unless the entire trip is convenient, economical, and comfortable.
I am against using toll funds for commuter rail … They are separate issues.
If we want to maintain the rural lifestyle perhaps we ought to got Sherman to loan us his “Wayback machine”. The Suburbia is already here and extends all the way to Douglassville …
Ed
Please do not make 422 a toll road. People who use that everyday as just another road are going to be spending hundreds of dollars just to pay a toll to get to work, school, lunch, meetings, and home. I think it is ridiculous coming from someone who does use it everyday. People are going to start using back roads and then all of those will need to be replaced and eventually it will just end up causing us to pay even more in the long run. A bumpy road and some traffic is not worth paying all that money in the long run.