Don’t expect miracles from effort to solve truck traffic around Allentown airport
On Wednesday, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission unveiled the longanticipated LVIA Area Freight Study, an examination of the warehouse boom in and around Allen Township. If the region wants to get ahead of the tractor-trailer congestion that’s bombarded the township and the surrounding communities, it will need to look into a dozen recommendations offered by the report.
But one thing is clear: The truck traffic isn’t going away, no matter how many people would like it to.
That is understandably hard news to swallow for many of the longtime residents who have watched their rural community get bulldozed for a couple of gargantuan warehouses. Aside from the huge FedEx Ground hub, The Rockefeller Group has made significant progress on a million-square-foot warehouse across the street from it. Farther north, another 4 million square feet of warehouses are in the works on two developments around Howertown Road and Route 329.
“Pandora’s box has already been opened, and if we don’t address it, we’re doomed,” said Charles Doyle, director of transportation planning and data at the commission.
Doomed may be a little strong, but he’s otherwise right. Developers found cheap land with weak zoning laws and jumped on it. Allen Township, to its credit, learned from other communities to require developers to fund road improvements and provide truck parking on site. Those improvements won’t change the fact that all these warehouses could attract more than 10,000 tractor-trailers
a day.
That number isn’t hyperbole. The 850,000squarefoot FedEx Ground hub attracts about 1,800 big rigs daily. If the Route 329 sites and the other Willowbrook Road warehouse attract proportional totals, you get 10,800 trucks. That isn’t including other smaller warehouses that have been approved in the township, either.
Wednesday’s freight plan cannot change that number, and developers aren’t going to be persuaded to abandon millions of dollars in investment because they’re angering the neighbors. The best people can hope for is to limit the inconvenience.
Some of the recommendations may be able to help with that, but they could be hard sells in some communities. Two of them would make Weaversville Road more traversable for trucks — one by realigning it with Airport Road and the other by building a connection between Weaversville Road and Seemsville Road. Neither would likely be popular. While they both could improve road safety, the current setup should discourage trucks from traveling those routes.
I say “should” because trucks are still driving it despite the tight, narrow curves. Tractortrailers are barred from that road, but as one Upper Macungie Township police officer said at the Wednesday meeting, too many truckers are blindly following GPS these days.
“You could paint a sign on the hood of these trucks and the drivers wouldn’t see it,” he said.
Another likely contentious recommendation would open Mill Street in Bath to trucks. This small road isn’t much more than an alley, but it connects Routes 512 and 329, potentially alleviating some of the bottleneck in the borough’s downtown. But a number of problems present themselves.
For starters, a small Northampton County bridge carries the road over Monocacy Creek, and it’s not up to the task of carrying 18-wheelers. Secondly, that block has both residents and small businesses on it, none of whom would likely welcome trucks right outside the window.
Brian Funkhouser, the consultant who led the study, made clear that transportation is not a priority in Washington, leaving local residents to band together to try to figure out this mess on their own. That’s true, but lets state officials off the hook.
Since taking over this column, I’ve realized transportation issues are just as often land-use issues. And Pennsylvania’s landuse laws stink for established communities. Communities need more control of what uses they’re going to allow in their communities.
Municipalities are required to zone for every conceivable use. That means boroughs like Coopersburg need to have a spot where someone could build a zoo. Easton needs to have a spot for industrial farming. And Allen Township needed to have spots where people could build enormous warehouses.
It’s an antiquated system causing grief throughout the Lehigh Valley, but the only people who can change it are legislators in Harrisburg. It’s a group that’s often out of touch. That same group of luminaries last year passed a law allowing today’s larger tractor-trailers to travel down any road that doesn’t specifically bar it. Until 2018, modern trucks had to stick to larger roads and highways that were better equipped to carry them. Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Easton, was the only state official to vote against the measure.
It’s cases like this where I’m frustrated by the general lack of interest in local politics. Yes, federal matters get more coverage from cable news, but the stuff that really matters — like the parade of trucks suddenly rumbling down your block every day — are controlled at the local and state level.
If the trucking crisis is truly the No. 1 concern in the Lehigh Valley, residents need to make it the priority of their municipal officials and state legislators. Write them, phone them and attend their town hall meetings to demand action. If they don’t respond how you want, vote in someone who will.
Keep in mind that there’s more to this than just saying warehouses are bad. I’ve watched too many well-meaning public officials vote for plans and developments because their hands were tied. Voting against a development that is allowed by local zoning will almost assuredly lead to an expensive lawsuit and still allow the offending development to come through.
Instead, elected officials need to preemptively address the underlying problems behind the warehouse crisis. At the township and borough level, elected officials need to review their zoning laws. If it makes sense, they can form a multimunicipal plan so boroughs and towns can have more freedom about what’s allowed where. These joint plans can allow communities to zone collectively. For example, boroughs can avoid finding space for industrial uses if it’s zoned in a partnered township. That same township can cut back on high-density housing if it’s allowed in the partnered borough.
The truck problem isn’t going away. As one woman said at the freight meeting, some local municipalities were caught with their pants down. But if local residents don’t take action and make sure their elected officials don’t prevent more of the same, we’ll be just as much to blame for letting it get worse.
Morning Call reporter Tom Shortell can be reached at 610-820-6168 or tshortell@mcall.com.