The Sanatoga Post

Cover of the 422 Master Plan Summary Report.

PHILADELPHIA PA – Today (Monday, Nov. 30, 2009) is the last day available for public comment on the draft executive summary of a report likely to affect the future of the 25-mile-long U.S. Route 422 corridor between King of Prussia PA and Reading PA, and its tens of thousands of residents.

• Read the 66-page draft report, issued in October 2009, here.
• Comment on the report here. To be able to comment, you must join the report’s host website – 422Corridor.com – as a member, in the same way you would join any social network like Twitter or Facebook. Becoming a member requires commenters to supply only a verifiable e-mail address and desired password. No personal information need be supplied unless desired.

“The U.S. 422 Corridor Master Plan Summary Report” is an overview of current economic, social, land use and transportation conditions along what the Philadelphia-based Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, for which the report was prepared, considers “the single most important and fastest-growing suburban expressway in the Philadelphia suburban region.”

The report’s statistics, tables, charts, graphs and supplemental materials also form a justification for what some members of the public describe as thought-provoking, even controversial, proposals. They include:

• The potential for open road tolling on U.S. Route 422, currently a free roadway, to raise funds for its improvement and other forms of transportation as well;
• The extension of rail service from Norristown into western Montgomery and Berks counties, possibly as far as Reading;
• The addition of new, and expansion of existing, bicycle and walking trail systems to accommodate alternate transportation; and
• Land use changes that would intensify development in certain areas, restrict it in others, and undoubtedly change the appearance and function of most affected towns and villages over the course of a decade.

Such suggestions are not new. Most have been publicly discussed and dissected for months, and some for years. The report, however, represents a comprehensive packaging of the proposals, and shows how they might be put into practice as various components of a single plan. Experts say implementing them is necessary to prevent further vehicular gridlock on 422, and prevent an unsustainable sprawl of development across the corridor.

Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick and Pottstown are prominent in the report.

Lower Pottsgrove and Limerick (PA) townships, and the borough of Pottstown, figure prominently in the report. Some of its recommendations deal specifically with existing or future scenarios in all three municipalities. They lie in the center of the corridor, and parts of each are foreseen as sites of intense commercial and residential construction through 2015.

Public comments made on the report will be incorporated into a final document to be published later next year, according to its author, the engineering and planning firm McCormick Taylor. Municipal governments must then approve the report to allow its advancement.

Related:

• Isolating Report’s Look At Lower Pottsgrove

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

• 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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See our galleries for photos that appear in The Post. Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

PHILADELPHIA PA – Based on facts cited, statistics compiled, and evidence mounted, the authors of a “U.S. 422 Corridor Master Plan Summary Report” conclude the current pace of development along the four-lane limited-access highway between King of Prussia PA and Reading PA is unsustainable at best, and dangerous at worst.

• Read a companion story titled “Last Day For Your Say On Route 422 Draft.”

Whether they’re right or wrong is yet to be determined by the public and their elected and appointed officials. Today is the last day for public comment on a draft version of the report.

No matter what ultimately happens with the document and any decisions arising from it, its immediate value may lie in the graphic look it gives residents of their local world, and how its economic, business, and transportation environments affect their lives.

The Post has cropped or edited four of the report’s illustrations to focus its broader study of the corridor into isolated snapshots-in-time of life in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township. The 66-page draft report features 20 such illustrations.

Existing Land Use in Lower Pottsgrove, 2005.

Land Use. Four years ago, the above map excerpt from the report shows, the bulk of land within the township had already been used by or set aside for detached single-family homes (areas in bright yellow). With the exception of recreational areas (in light green) like township parks, most of the wooded (dark green) and agricultural (light tan) areas of Lower Pottsgrove were limited to its northern end (at top). Some of those formerly untouched spots now are the subject of future residential development plans.

Population growth in Lower Pottsgrove and neighboring municipalities.

Population growth. Limerick (PA) Township, on Lower Pottsgrove’s eastern border, experienced explosive growth in a 10-year period. Its population more than doubled, the above map excerpt from the report shows. Although its growth was nowhere near as substantial, with a 27.3-percent increase during the decade, Lower Pottsgrove’s population growth was significantly higher than any other municipality within the 19464 and 19465 “Pottstown” zip codes. In effect, according to the data, more people who wanted a Pottstown address between 1990 and 2000 chose to live in Lower Pottsgrove.

Much of the land in Lower Pottsgrove is well suited for development.

Suitability for development. Why are contractors so interested in building in Lower Pottsgrove? About two-thirds of the land encompassed within township borders (shown in the report map excerpt above) is considered suitable for development, with the best areas (darkest green) in the northeast and east.

As elsewhere on Route 422, traffic grinds through Lower Pottsgrove.

Average daily traffic. Anyone who travels by car from Lower Pottsgrove to somewhere else on any given weekday, and increasingly on some weekends, knows how vehicular traffic can grind to a crawl during peak hours. The report map excerpt above, which relies on Pennsylvania Department of Transportation data, shows that in 2008 more than 51,000 cars traveled U.S. Route 422 (orange line) on an average day. Armand Hammer Boulevard, from Pottstown Memorial Medical Center (PMMC) south to the on-ramp for 422, saw more than 15,000 cars per day, as did Ridge Pike from PMMC east into Limerick and beyond (dark green lines). And almost 10,000 cars per day were cruising Industrial Highway (light green line).

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PHILADELPHIA PA – Planning for the future of the U.S. Route 422 corridor between King of Prussia PA and Reading PA continued Friday (Aug. 14, 2009), with a scheduled meeting on Independence Mall of consultants and experts who said they wanted to help determine what happens with the highway during the next 20 years.

The meeting “is the initial piece” to find consultants who ultimately will bid on a chance to study “traffic and revenue potential, and future highway capital costs” for needed improvements to 422, Montgomery County (PA) Planning Commission Assistant Director Leo Bagley explained last week by e-mail.

Passengers wait at the Norristown rail station for the R-6 train to take them into Philadelphia.

They will also look, Bagley noted, at “potential capital costs” for extending SEPTA‘s R-6 rail service from Norristown to Reading, as well as “the public outreach necessary as the region examines various tolling options” for the limited-access, four-lane road.

The Philadelphia-based Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) advertised for, and was to have conducted, the “Expression of Interest” meeting regarding the corridor at the ACP Building, 190 N. Independence Mall West.

No firm or individual has yet been hired for work the meeting was expected to cover. Friday’s gathering, both Bagley and DVRPC Contracts Manager John Griffes indicated, was more along the lines of a meet-and-greet session. Potential bidders introduced themselves, got questions about the studies and needs answered, picked up required documents, and scoped out competitors.

In coming weeks, Bagley said, DVRPC is expected to issue a request for proposals to which bidders would respond, possibly by September (2009). With those in hand, according to Bagley, DVRPC “will hopefully award a contract” in October to get the studies under way.

Related:

• 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
• 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

Sign up to get The Sanatoga Post delivered free daily by e-mail.
Got news for us? E-mail The Post.

Operators of website 422Corridor.com hope you'll answer the question.

KING OF PRUSSIA PA – 422Corridor.com, a website established in late May to help prompt discussion about the future of U.S. Route 422 between King of Prussia and Reading, has gotten plenty of comments over the prospect of imposing tolls to pay for upgrading the highway and transit options there. What it’s hoping for now is alternative solutions.

King of Prussia-based GVF Transportation, a non-profit organization operating the website, distributed an e-mail Monday afternoon (Aug. 10, 2009) that acknowledged public disgruntlement on the tolling issue, and then essentially asked: so, you got a better idea?

“We have seen a number of posts opposing tolling US 422, and speculating over the results of the tolling,” the e-mail read. “We want your input as how to address the funding needs of the corridor. We have provided a forum discussion ‘How should we fund the needed improvements‘ to address the issue. The US 422 Corridor Team encourages your participation in this discussion.”

The mentioned forum isn’t new; it opened June 24 (2009), but never received activity. That’s already changed. As proof that people respond to the contents of their in-boxes, six replies have been added to the forum since the e-mail went out less than 24 hours ago.

422 eastbound traffic snakes its way toward Oaks.

Proposals to charge drivers a fee to travel 422, as a means of raising money to pay for both needed improvements to the road and extending mass transit to supplement it, has been a hot-button topic with the public since it was floated by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) earlier this year.

Messages on tolling left in different forums at 422Corridor.com, which was launched to support DVRPC recommendations, are overwhelmingly negative. Of 35 comments currently found in just one forum, titled “What are your thoughts on the US 422 Master Plan,” 19 different writers oppose and nine favor it; four writers, two in each camp, had multiple comments.

422Corridor.com so far has let forum discussions run their course, despite commenters’ opinions. No authors have publicly complained about comments being censored, altered, omitted, or removed. Website operators, however, obviously have their sights set on something more than bashing of DVRPC’s plans.

“We have heard your issues,” the Monday e-mail assured recipients, “now lets come up with some solutions. Please take a moment to provide your ideas to the planning team,” it asked.

Anonymous comments are not accepted. To be able to comment, authors must join 422Corridor.com as a member, in the same way they would join any social network like Twitter or Facebook. Becoming a member requires authors to supply only a verifiable e-mail address and desired password. No personal information need be supplied unless desired.

Related:

• Truckers Alerted On Highway Partnerships Bill
• In 422 Debate, Time A Hindrance And Help
• 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

Editor’s Note: Joe Zlomek, managing editor of The Sanatoga Post, joined 422Corridor.com as a member on June 25 (2009). He has not commented in any of its forum discussions.

A scene that's all too familiar: a line of traffic on Route 422 East snakes its way toward Trooper during a morning commute.

POTTSTOWN PA – For some drivers, the weekday morning crawl known as commuting on U.S. Route 422 east between Sanatoga and Trooper is never a problem. They read the newspaper, folded into quarters for easy handling, atop their steering wheel. They drink coffee. They chat on the phone or text to friends. Those who are grooming-challenged even shave with an electric razor or fix their make-up.

The rest of us just sit and steam, but maybe that can change beginning Wednesday (Feb. 18, 2009).

The 25-mile corridor.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), which thinks about how we’ll be living here 20 years from now, is asking for a drivers’ point of view on the future of Route 422. It will hold the second of two local input meetings Wednesday from 6:30-9 p.m. in the community room of the West campus of Montgomery County Community College, 101 College Dr. The public’s invited to see what DVRPC thinks could happen along the highway, and to offer its own solutions.

• The commission will hold a similar meeting tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009) at the same times in the Oaks Elementary School cafeteria, 325 Oaks School Dr., Oaks PA.

The commission characterizes 422 as “possibly the single most important and fastest growing suburban expressway in the Philadelphia region, and an integral part of the inter-regional highway network.” It’s created a master plan for the future needs of the 25-mile-long corridor that includes roadway (lane) capacity, interchange design, connecting roadway improvements, transit alternatives and connections, and future land use plans.

Some of the plan’s ideas are familiar to Lower Pottsgrove residents. They’ve heard for several years about the need to re-design the highway’s interchange at Sanatoga. They’ve been encouraged by, and then disappointed by, see-saw speculation of whether commuter train service west from Norristown PA will ever return as a transit alternative.

Land use planning also is part of the DVRPC mandate. This parcel is on the north side of Route 422 at Limerick.

For people who aren’t familiar with those and other proposals, however, the DVRPC meeting will provide an introduction. Think of it as a sort of transportation fair. Booths in MCCC’s community room – the commission refers to them as “stations” – will display maps and renderings of land use and transportation conditions along the 422 corridor. Commission staff members will be available to answer questions.

DVRPC is the official metropolitan planning organization for the Greater Philadelphia region, consisting of nine counties: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Mercer in New Jersey.

The input meetings are co-sponsored by an organization known as the U.S. 422 Corridor Coalition, which consists of the DVRPC and other planning organizations, a handful of municipalities (Limerick township is a member; Lower Pottsgrove is not), elected state legislators (including Lower Pottsgrove Rep. Tom Quigley), and corporate members (including Exelon Nuclear, the Philadelphia Premium Oulets, the college, Traffic Planning and Design of Sanatoga, and the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce).

Related:

• Train Service On The Front Burner Once More

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