POTTSTOWN PA – Delaware Valley planners are prepared in coming months to ask municipalities in Montgomery, Chester and Berks counties to officially approve a master plan for the future of U.S. Route 422, from King of Prussia to Reading. It includes the potential placement of future commuter train stations in Pottstown, Lower Pottsgrove, Linfield and Stowe, financed in part by revenues to be raised from tolls on the highway.
Future commuter train stations detailed in the Route 422 Master Plan.
The master plan’s summary report, as a “draft-final” version, was released to the public Monday (Feb. 8, 2010) by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission through the U.S. Route 422 Corridor website.
The latest version of the master plan contains many of the same elements recommended in earlier releases. The suggestion that’s generated the greatest controversy, by far, is a proposal to charge drivers a fee to travel 422. The tolls are seen as the surest way to generate money that could pay for highway improvements as well as other forms of transport, such as the extension of commuter rail service west from Norristown PA.
The plan also covers existing and proposed land use policies, access management and land development controls municipalities within the 25-mile-long corridor, and tying land use to transportation policies. Its ultimate goal: to avoid traffic gridlock and overcrowding, and preserve as much open space as possible in the suburbs northwest of Philadelphia.
The report was released in seven separately downloadable sections, and is expected to be promoted this spring during a series of presentations to be held in various municipalities. A similar roadshow was organized last year when the plan was in its earliest stages. Its “draft-final” designation, suggested by DVRPC Executive Director Barry Seymour, leaves open the possibility it might be changed as a result of input from the spring discussions.
Most sections explain the background for, the data used in, and the land use and transit trends leading up to the study. Its meat, however, is found in Chapter 5, titled “Strategies for Sustainability and a Program for Plan Implementation.” Chief among the “early action items” listed there is a call to review the “potential viability of toll revenues to finance future roadway and transit improvements.”
The placement of train stations, although detailed in the report, are foreseen as future and less immediate goals. On a map provided in Chapter 5, a portion of which is reproduced above, the priority would be to locate a station first in Pottstown, and then potentially in Lower Pottsgrove, Linfield and Stowe. The map shows a Lower Pottsgrove station might be located at the south end of Armand Hammer Boulevard.
The report’s Chapter 6 includes a proposed draft resolution that would be offered to municipal governing bodies which, if approved, would formalize their acceptance of the master plan’s “principles and strategies.”
Related (to U.S. Route 422 Corridor planning):
- Tolls, Lower Pottsgrove Station Part Of 422 Plan
- Pending Decision May Affect Route 422 Projects
- Last Day For Your Say On Route 422 Plan
- Notebook Worthy (Aug. 24, 2009)
- Consultants Express Interest In Studying 422
- Don’t Like 422 Tolling? Website Wants Your Alternative
- Truckers Alerted On Highway Partnerships Bill
- In 422 Debate, Time A Hindrance And Help
- Notebook Worthy (June 29, 2009)
- 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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Ok
We have light rail. How do you get to the train station, and how do you get from the station at the other end to your office?
When you make these ends of the commute comfortable for people, then you’ll get riders. Until you do, people will not ride the rail or the bus and give up their ability to go to lunch, shop, etc. at the other end. In the late ’70s, I’d drive to Paoli and take the train to my office at Chestnut street in Philadelphia. Did this for several years, until it got to be impossible to make the train as the commute to it was too iffy. I was hoofing it in the city in the weather, the cold, the heat etc.
I gave it up when it wasn’t economical anymore. I also disliked the weather issues.
People aren’t going to ride the rails, just like they won’t ride the bus, until it’s comfortable, economical, and saves time.
Another permanent toll, maybe in addition to new tolls on I-80? No to it all. We were better off in the 18th and 19th centuries when private individuals owned bridges and toll roads. I’m sure the government bought all those with the promise that these would be the property of the people. I don’t think people should have to pay to use their own property, should they? So NO to any improvements that would require the government to restrict our liberty with ever-increasing confiscation of our wealth.