Lehigh residents fear fatal crash amid construction on Route 248, detours

Truck drivers who aren’t following posted detours for roadwork on Route 248 have drawn the ire of residents in Lehigh Township.

Lisa Hader, of Church Road, said it has gotten so bad where she lives that she complained to PennDOT, only to be turned away.

“PennDOT’s response is that it’s your local police department’s problem,” she told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Police Chief Scott Fogel, sitting nearby, smiled when he heard that.

“Of course they said that,” he said.

PennDOT closed a section of Route 248 from Moore Township west to the Pennsville section of Lehigh Township in order to replace a bridge over the Hokendauqua Creek, with westbound detours directing vehicles onto Allen Drive to Old Carriage and Indian Trail roads.

The detour eastbound is at Walnut Drive.

The detours are expected to remain in effect until the end of the year.

Fogel said truckers are using GPS to seek out alternatives to the posted detours. He said he will ask patrols to focus on Church Road to try to reduce the problem.

Hader said trucks are coming onto Church Road via West Beersville Road to access Walnut Drive, and that there aren’t signs posted prohibiting truck traffic.

“My biggest fear is that somebody’s going to get killed,” she said. “I’m so tired of it; it’s such a scary place to live now.”

Her neighbor, Dennis Miller, said conditions on Church Road, which has a 35 mph speed limit, amount “to an accident waiting to happen.”

It’s gotten so bad, he said, that it’s “next to impossible” for his elderly parents to pull out of their driveway.

Kevin Duffy is a freelance writer for The Morning Call.