Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Officials unveil new road map for I-76
PennDOT unveils plan for traffic management, infrastructure upgrades
Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation Leslie Richards joined other PennDOT officials and representatives from SEPTA and the Pennsylvania State Police at the parkand-ride lot on Matsonford Road Tuesday to announce a comprehensive, multi-modal transportation management plan for the I-76 corridor between King of Prussia and Philadelphia.
The plan, which was devised following a 2014 feasibility study of a 12-mile stretch of the expressway between the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange at Valley Forge and US Route 1, includes parttime shoulder use, ramp metering, variable speed limits and junction control, along with expanded regional rail service and enhancements to the Schuylkill River Trail.
Active traffic management (ATM) technology will be incorporated to facilitate future connected-vehicle applications, including driverless cars, and modernize nearby signaling systems. And PennDOT is partnering with SEPTA to utilize the agency’s smart parking pilot program, which will provide drivers with real time traffic updates, train schedules and parking availability via electronic message boards.
“I’m always asked, ‘Is there anything you can do with I-76?’” Richards began. “And today I’m happy to say yes,
there is something we can do, and it’s actually not just one thing. It’s a lot of things.
“The importance of this corridor to the Philadelphia region cannot be overstated. It’s imperative that we take advantage of new technologies and partner with SEPTA and other key stakeholders in offering citizens more attractive travel options.”
Richards noted that the Schuylkill Expressway, which was built in the 1950s, carries hundreds of thousands of motorists in and out of Philadelphia and Montgomery County on a daily basis, but has limited capacity and is often congested due to lane restrictions caused by natural physical barriers.
She said the transportation plan was needed to “actively manage traffic and make travel more reliable” for motorists on the expressway and parallel streets, as well public transportation commuters and cyclists using the
Schuylkill River Trail.
An initial phase of the project, adding variable speed limits and queue detectors between the turnpike interchange and Route 1, will begin in late 2017 at a cost of $2.2 million, and is expected to be operational within a year. Richards said.
The early-action project is designed to smooth traffic flow and alert motorist to impending traffic conditions in the hopes of alleviating the sudden traffic stoppages that lead to rear-end crashes, Richards said.
Engineering work will begin this fall on the larger $125 million project to utilize the outside shoulders of I-76 as parttime travel lanes on westbound I-76 between the Roosevelt Boulevard and Belmont Avenue interchanges, and on both sides of the expressway east of the turnpike interchange to the Interstate 476 interchange.
Richards said the improvements to the expressway will present new traffic patterns for drivers, and thanked the state police and local emergency
responders for their close collaboration in developing the plan to ensure motorists’ safety.
A pilot program allowing PennDOT to own and manage traffic signal systems along several arterial roads running parallel or adjacent to the expressway will further allow the agency to more efficiently move vehicles, especially in the event of accidents, Richards added.
“This corridorwide, multi-agency, multimodal approach is the optimal strategy to address the I-76 corridor, now and into the future. We believe this combination of realtime traffic management, more frequent transit service and the improvement of signal systems on adjacent arterial roads will collectively make this corridor a smoother one for everybody to travel on.” Richards said.
“The conventional wisdom has been, for much too long, that you just can’t do anything with the I-76 corridor, Well we’re here today because we can do something, and we’re going to do something to help our commuters.”