New 422 ramp on tap for Sanatoga Interchange
LIMERICK » A new Route 422 on-ramp at the busy Sanatoga interchange is not likely to be ready for driving much before 2020, township supervisors were told Tuesday.
Joe Platt, from the Lower Pottsgrove firm of Traffic Planning and Design, said the project will be reviewed by PennDOT in August and that construction will most likely take most of 2019 to complete.
The new ramp will allow shoppers leaving Costco and the Philadelphia Outlets to get onto 422 westbound without having to make the dangerous left across opposing traffic on Evergreen Road.
The total cost of the westbound ramp project is estimated at about $3 million and Limerick and Lower Pottsgrove townships have made contributions to cover the 30 percent match required by the state grant.
That local share is being split between Limerick and Lower Pottsgrove, with 65 percent of the local share being paid by Limerick.
That money, said Township Manager Dan Kerr, is being drawn out of the traffic impact fees the township has charged developers for years
and no local Limerick tax money is being used to pay the township’s share.
Two years ago, a consultant used by both townships to obtain the PennDOT grant to pay for most of the project tried to convince PennDOT to upgrade all the ramps at the Sanatoga Interchange that need upgrading at the same time, but that effort evidently ended in failure.
Traffic at the Sanatoga interchange will only increase if the two projects that have been proposed on the Lower Pottsgrove side of Evergreen Road come to fruition.
The $146 million Sanatoga Green project, although dormant for months while issues involved with getting its water supplied by Pennsylvania American Water Company are worked out, received preliminary site plan approval from the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners last year.
It calls for the construction of about 500 homes and apartments, a hotel and large medical building off Evergreen Road.
Two years ago, The Mercury reported that a second project on an adjacent 24 acres was being marketed.
Possible uses include a hotel, an anchor store and four independent PAD sites, usually occupied by drug stores or stand-alone restaurants.
The marketing materials also identify three “mixed-use” buildings at the rear of the property which would seem to indicate some residential units.
No formal plans for that project have been submitted to the township.