Truck traffic raises concerns

Mininger Road residents say vehicles cause more noise, property damage

FRANCONIA » Restrictions on truck traffic in Towamencin and Hatfield are only making things worse on their road, two Mininger Road residents told the Franconia Township Board of Supervisors at its Feb. 20 meeting.

“We can’t even sit in our family rooms with the windows open because of all the truck traffic, the horns beeping, the constant being woken up in the middle of the nights, the downshifting,” said Jennifer Torres, who lives at the corner of Cowpath and Mininger roads.

“I mean, it’s really impacting us,” she said. “We can’t even sit in our yard anymore. And that was last year. Now we’re having more truck traffic.”

Towamencin recently decided to temporarily ban truck traffic at the Allentown and Derstine roads intersection, with a traffic study being done to see if the ban could be made permanent. Hatfield Borough also previously put restrictions on truck traffic.

In answer to a question from

Torres at the Franconia meeting, board Chairman Grey Godshall said Franconia didn’t know in advance about the plans by the other

towns to place the restrictions on the trucks.

He understands the problems for the Mininger Road residents and the township will look into trying to find ways to help, he said.

The planned connector between Route 309 and the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is the ultimate solution, he said.

“In the long term, once

the East-West Connector is built, we can probably do some type of posting on Mininger Road,” Godshall said.

“At this point, if we post Mininger Road, we’re going to push them to Beck Road and if we post Beck Road, we’re going to push them somewhere else,” Godshall said, “so we have not come up with a solution yet that we find favorable at this point other than trying to get the East-West Connector built as fast as possible.”

The connector currently runs from Sumneytown Pike to Allentown Road. Work on the next section, taking it to Souderton-Hatfield Pike, is expected to begin in 2022. Construction of the third and final stage, to Route 309, has not yet been scheduled.

Torres said the businesses the trucks are going to are in the neighboring towns, which get the tax revenue from the business, but shift the truck traffic elsewhere.

That could happen anywhere, Godshall said.

“If the businesses are located on one side of the line and the streets to get to those businesses are on the other side of the line, it’s a matter of chance,” he said.

“I think, for me, I was just pretty much surprised when I read the article last week where they actually said, ‘Hey, we know we’re pushing it into our neighboring township, but we gotta worry about ours,” Mininger Road resident Dawn Transue said. “That was pretty offensive.”

“Who worries about us then?” Torres asked.

“We will in turn worry about ours,” Godshall said.

Transue outlined some of the damage done by the trucks, particularly to Torres’ property.

“Her lawn’s dying and everything because they’re just running over her lawn. We’ve had several accidents there,” Transue said. “They’ve actually knocked the wires down, knocked

our cabling out for days.”

Any time damage is done to a property, the person responsible for it has to indemnify the property owner if the person doing the damage is identified, Godshall said.

“Turning radiuses on roads, that kind of thing, we will take a look,” he said.

Torres said the truck drivers do the best they can, but it’s a difficult intersection for the trucks to maneuver.

“It’s got to be really cumbersome on them, trying to make it out of there without hitting the other poles and get through the traffic,” she said.

In another matter at the meeting, the board heard from Indian Valley Public Library officials who delivered the library’s annual report.

“You may not know this, but we have 800 people every day that come to the library,” library board member Alexander Grande said.

“I know some people

may be questioning, aren’t libraries passe?” he said. “Not ours.”

Franconia, Souderton, Telford, Lower Salford and Salford each have a library tax that, combined, provides the bulk of the funding for the library in Telford.

“We want to continue to thank you for your support, but just realize that we are out there working on other ways to keep our library sustainable,” library Director Margie Stern said.

On the previous Saturday, the library hosted indoor miniature golf, she said. That was only one of the things going on there at the time, though.

“We had 450 people just playing miniature golf and they sort of got in the way of all the people getting their taxes done by AARP and United Way, but we all kind of worked together to make it happen,” Stern said. “We’re busy. Everything’s going very well. Again, thank you for your support.”

“I think, for me, I was just pretty much surprised when I read the article last week where they actually said, ‘Hey, we know we’re pushing it into our neighboring township, but we gotta worry about ours. That was pretty offensive.” Dawn Transue “We can’t even sit in our family rooms with the windows open because of all the truck traffic, the horns beeping, the constant being woken up in the middle of the nights, the downshifting.” Jennifer Torres