The conversion of Susquehanna Avenue and Courtland Street from the current one-way traffic to two-way traffic is underway, with plans to be implemented beginning the second week of August.
The roadway is going to be reverted temporarily in August until the Lansdale Borough Council decides to make it permanent, said Lansdale Police Chief Mike Trail. The roads will also have stop signs and various cross streets. Signposts have already been installed and the borough is waiting on signs and striping materials to remark the roadway.
Discussions of the new traffic pattern have been ongoing since mid-December 2021, with the goal of improving traffic flow around Main Street while also making parking lots more accessible and easier to navigate to and from, according to an op-ed published by Mayor Garry Herbert in April. The new traffic patterns are also part of efforts to encourage community members to utilize the sidewalks to safely drop off kids at the Boys and Girls Club.
“If they're getting off a bus, they’re going directly on the sidewalk; if they're getting out of cars, they’re going on the sidewalks,” said Trail. “We're going to ask the parents to no longer drop off their kids in the middle of the street.”
The roads were once two-way streets but were converted to a one-way street over time to accommodate nearby businesses. With those businesses now gone, reverting the roads will provide easy access to the parking lot at Susquehanna Avenue and Vine Street, which are underutilized because it's hard to get to, said Trail.
The borough will be working with the North Penn School District bus garage and the Boys and Girls Club to get the word out to the community on the new traffic patterns. There will be social media posts and posters displayed during meetings with the Boys and Girls Club to inform community members.
Officials will be conducting traffic counts as soon as the new two-way roadways are implemented to determine how the roads are being utilized and if the traffic flows it’s creating will be followed.
“We're going to make sure that buses are approaching a certain way and cars are approaching a certain way,” said Trail. “We're going to take a lot of feedback from the businesses and we're going to monitor that parking lot over there to see if it’s become more utilized.”
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