PennDOT seeking input from drivers
Survey will help prioritize roadwork projects
Care to sound off about Route 22 traffic? Maybe vent about a troublesome intersection or how trucks are overwhelming local infrastructure? The Pennsylvania Transportation Commission wants to hear from you.
The commission, which acts as PennDOT’s board of trustees, is seeking public comment as part of creating the state’s next 12-year plan. The state updates the document every two years, creating a to-do list of construction projects and improvements for highways, interstates, ports, bridges, airports, walking paths and public transit systems across the Keystone State. Local planning groups, such as the
Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, make contributions with the state overseeing other parts, like the interstate system.
But transportation officials hope the online survey is more than an opportunity for drivers to sound off on potholes — though that’s still a key part of it. PennDOT views the survey as an interactive tool that can educate people about the challenges facing the transportation network and, ideally, lead to deeper conversations about how people and goods get around, and what it takes to make that happen.
“One thing we’re trying to influence is an appreciation for the fact we are constrained,” said Ronald Drnevich, a Dauphin County businessman who sits on the commission.
Pennsylvania’s transportation system has reached a crossroads. A gas tax signed into law by former Gov. Tom Corbett isn’t keeping up with the transportation network’s needs, leaving the state unable to fund billions of needed improvements. Gov. Tom Wolf has tasked a committee with proposing a new funding source other than the gas tax.
The survey attempts to put those funding challenges in context. Along with providing participants the chance to pinpoint rough patches of pavement or areas that seem to attract collisions, the survey challenges people to prioritize transportation needs. For example, part of this year’s survey gives participants a $100 budget and a laundry list of needs such as maintaining roads, expanding highways and funding public transit. But rather than start the exercise with no funds committed, the exercise begins with the budget already overdrawn and requiring at least some cuts.
Larry Shifflet, PennDOT’s deputy secretary for planning, said that for years, the commission would hold six or eight public meetings to field public input, but the sessions weren’t very productive. Attendance was typically poor, and people who showed up would understandably gripe about personal pet peeves. But even those conversations were time consuming because state officials aren’t as familiar with local landmarks.
Starting in 2015, the state rolled out a new online survey that let people pinpoint on a map where they were experiencing problems, Shifflet. But since they were making the tool themselves, they built new features that helped better focus feedback on bigger questions. How big a priority is supporting rail and buses? Should we invest more money in maintaining highways or adding new roads and lanes to the system?
“I think it’s led to a lot better input from the public to help us do a lot better job in meeting the public’s needs,” Shifflet said.
Results are shared with local planners, who can use the feedback to help shape their own planning priorities. The 2019 survey identified 81 issues in the Lehigh Valley, about half of which were addressed by plans the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study had already intended to fix. Many of the problems that hadn’t been previously identified harped issues along the Route 100 corridor in Lower Macungie Township.
Officials hope to hear back from 7,000 people statewide, and about 4,000 responses are already in, Drnevich said. PennDOT employees aren’t sure what to expect this year, given the dramatic changes in travel the pandemic has created in the past year. With countless people out of work or working from home, it’s possible the state could see some shifts in public opinion. Shifflet was unsure if the coronavirus has made public transit attractive or if congestion is as big a concern with fewer cars on the roads, for example.
“There’s a lot of us who are now teleworking and have been for an extended period,” Shifflet said from his home office. “Without seeing any results yet, I’ll be interested to see if some of that is out there.”