LIMERICK PA – The U.S. Route 422 Master Plan, a document that provides “a vision and a framework” to manage population growth and traffic congestion along the four-lane highway – and not one, backers pointed out, that directly calls for imposing driver tolls – won unanimous support Tuesday (July 20, 2010) from the Limerick (PA) Township Board of Supervisors.

Drivers traveling U.S. Route 422 west in Limerick (PA) Township approach the highway's Sanatoga interchange.

Before its vote to endorse the master plan’s principles and strategies, however, two board members, Chairman Kenneth Sperring Jr. and Supervisor Joseph St. Pedro, publicly volunteered that they would oppose tolls on 422 if recommended under a revenue study now being conducted. That review, begun earlier this year, is exploring how to pay for some master plan proposals.

Their statements were in response to questions posed by The Post over whether the township’s acceptance of the master plan could be interpreted as an endorsement of tolling. “The two are separate issues,” township Manager Daniel Kerr said, and he expressed confidence that, should tolling of 422 be suggested later, Limerick supervisors would vote on it separately.

Similar questions, posed July 6 by The Post to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners, caused it to withhold a vote on a resolution identical to the one passed in Limerick. At the time, commissioners acknowledged they were uncertain of its implications.

Limerick board Vice Chair Kara Shuler had no such hesitation. She cited the resolution’s vision-and-framework paragraph to emphasize her understanding that the endorsement was merely a statement of support for land use and transportation planning.

Her comments echoed those of Leo Bagley, assistant director of the Montgomery County Planning Department, who in an e-mail sent last Friday (July 16) to The Post wrote that “The resolution for the Master Plan (has) nothing to do with any tolling. Since the tolling study has been under way for only a couple of months now, nobody has any info on its feasibility.”

To suggest the two were linked, Bagley added, constituted hearsay and misinformation.

Limerick’s endorsement is the second offered by a municipality this month; the East Vincent Township Board of Supervisors similarly provided its master plan approval in a July 7 vote. Although an agenda for its meeting tomorrow (Thursday, July 22) is not yet available, Lower Pottsgrove indicated its board could re-visit the endorsement then. If so, its approval seems likely, based on commissioners’ earlier discussions.

Endorsement decisions also are being awaited from North and East Coventry, East Pikeland, Schuylkill, Lower Providence, Upper Merion, and Upper Providence townships; and Spring City, Phoenixville, Pottstown, and Royersford boroughs, according to Jerry Coyne, manager of the Office of Transportation Studies in the Philadelphia-based Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).

Related (to U.S. Route 422 Corridor planning):

• Neighboring Limerick Supervisors Endorse 422 Master Plan
• Understand 422 Plan Endorsement, Lower Pottsgrove Advised
• Lower Pottsgrove Holds On 422 Plan Endorsement
• Engineers Claim PA Roads Worse Now Than In 2006
• Tuesday Session Tackles Funding For 422 And Elsewhere
• 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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