Lansdale traffic study: Residents have a lot to say

Dozens of residents turned out to hear the first details of a long-awaited traffic study in the borough, as officials presented a preview of the study findings.

“Take the time, look at the study, understand the study, and give us your feedback,” said police Chief Mike Trail.

“Your feedback ultimately is going to be combined with the data from the study, and we’re going to arrive at concrete, actionable things that we will hopefully be able to undertake in the near future,” he said.

For several years, council and its public safety committee have heard complaints about traffic throughout town and about speeding and ignoring stop signs on the town’s side streets by drivers aimed to bypass congestion on Main and Broad streets related to the rail crossing there. Residents have continued to raise concerns as several accidents have happened along those studied streets in recent weeks.

On Wednesday night, Oct. 30, several dozen residents turned out to hear Trail and traffic engineer Earl Armitage summarize the studies they’ve done so far, possible solutions, and field feedback to be included in the final formal report.

Three study areas

Armitage broke down the three study areas his firm analyzed, using traffic counts taken this summer and crash data provided by police over the past five years, with local numbers compared to expected trip generation figures based on national standards and calculations. The first study area examined several side streets including Norway, Sycamore, Lombard and Lakeview drives, all used as bypasses by drivers trying to avoid backups at the intersection of Main Street and North Wales Road.

“This is the one area that had the clearest cut-through issue. Drivers are avoiding the light,” he said, usually in afternoon peak hours, with several crashes reported at Main and Lakeview as drivers try to cut across opposing traffic to get to the side streets.

In that area, the engineer is recommending the installation of speed humps on Norway, meant to slow drivers as they speed through the area, along with an afternoon turn restriction banning turns onto Lombardy and Sycamore during afternoon rush hours. Another more costly fix is also an option: realigning the intersection of Main and Lakeview to create a 90-degree turn instead of an offset one, so drivers have to slow down when making that turn, and with curbs extended to reduce the distance pedestrians have to cross.

“We’re trying to reduce the vehicle speeds, and make it less appealing as a cut-through,” Armitage said.

    Lansdale police Chief Mike Trail, center, and traffic engineer Earl Armitage, at podium, introduce a traffic study presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.
 By Dan Sokil | The Reporter   

Hancock, Laurel and Oakland

Study area two looked at speeds and crashes on Hancock Street, Laurel Lane, and Oakland Avenue, which drivers use to avoid backups on Main near Lansdale Avenue, and what Armitage called “the world’s longest left turn lane” at Hancock and Church Road just north of the Pennbrook SEPTA station. Those roads are currently posted with stop signs, and Laurel and Oakland could benefit from a different tactic.

“Those two roadways are wide, extremely wide. You could almost make them a four-lane highway, because of how wide it is, curb to curb. So when cars are parked there, it looks narrower. On-street parking is a traffic calming measure. There’s plenty of places in the borough that you need to drive slower, because it’s a narrow road with parking on it,” Armitage said.

Traffic counts on Hancock “were much higher” than the engineer expected, and required a second count after a first pass to verify the data collected, the engineer said. Those traffic counts could qualify the road for designation as a collector road, not a local road, and high speeds observed by the engineer could lead to a change in how the speed limit is calculated.

“When we took a look at Hancock Street, if that was not a posted roadway, what would we post that section of roadway at? We would probably post that section of roadway at 30 or 35 miles per hour,” higher than the current 25 mph posted speed limit, due to the traffic volumes and physical characteristics of the roadway.

Two new crosswalks with flashing yellow lights have recently been added to Hancock to provide pedestrian crossings near Stony Creek Park, and speed humps could be added close by.

Another more costly fix could be considered for Laurel: where it intersects with Wissahickon Avenue, the town could consider bump-outs, adding more sidewalk to the corners and narrowing the roadway so pedestrians can cross faster and drivers slow down. Similar bump-outs were recently added to an intersection in Easton, Armitage said, and were “received extremely well.”

    Borough council members look at a map of traffic signals, stop signs, and possible new speed humps that could be installed on several streets in Lansdale during a traffic study presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. From left to right are borough Mayor Garry Herbert, public safety committee chairwoman Meg Currie Teoh, council President Mary Fuller and borough Manager John Ernst.
 By Dan Sokil | The Reporter   

The third study area looked at the town’s west ward, tracking speed limits and accidents between Broad and Valley Forge Road on Derstine, Columbia, and Delaware Avenues and Mt. Vernon Street. All of those streets feature four-way stop signs east of Cannon Avenue but only two-way stops west of Cannon, so speed humps could be installed between Salford and Mitchell Avenues on a stretch that’s currently a straightaway, the engineer said.

“That area is where we put our cameras, and our speed detection devices, and that is where we saw the higher speeds,” Armitage said: “The majority of traffic is obeying the law, but there are very noticeable outliers, where we see people driving 40, we saw one vehicle driving 50 miles an hour on a residential street. That is completely unacceptable.”

Cost of fixes

How much could the fixes cost? Speed humps, across the full roadway, or “speed cushions” with gaps so emergency vehicles can pass typically cost $3,000 to $5,000 per location, and could be added to paving contracts if those roads are resurfaced, Armitage said. Curb extensions and bump-outs typically cost more, $7,000 to $10,000 per corner, but could be addressed with pavement markings and flexible delineators at a cost of $1,500 to $3,000 per corner before trying the more costly approaches, he said.

“We can come up with all the recommendations in the world, but all this stuff has to be paid for: initially to be put in, and then there’s some form of maintenance associated with it. It’s something we need to plan for,” Armitage said, and grants could be available to cover some of the costs.

Residents speak up

Residents sounded off about what they’ve seen on their streets, and upgrades they’d like the town to consider.

Rege McKenzie of Columbia Avenue asked if the engineer would also consider pavement markings at intersections, and adding trees along streets. “How people drive is dependent on how wide the road is, and how far they can see. Trees impact that,” he said, and Armitage said those could also be considered.

Allen Fuller said he thought the speed humps on cut-through streets were “really good ideas,” and Shannon DeBellis said she lives near the corner of Towamencin and Delaware Avenues, and asked if the town could add lines on the curbs to increase visibility and keep cars from parking too close to the corner.

“Even if it’s simple yellow paint to say ‘Hey, you can’t park here,’ because that’s a battle. If I’m driving the Civic, I can’t see; if I’m driving the Subaru, I can see,” she said. Trail answered that police have previously surveyed all setbacks from intersections, fire hydrants and crosswalks, but adding those markings could cause another problem.

“The other issue we have that’s just as important as traffic and speeding, is a lack of parking. The neighborhoods lost parking spaces. There’s a tradeoff, and I don’t know what that is, but it is something we definitely can be looking at,” Trail said.

    Traffic engineer Earl Armitage, at podium, listens as residents share feedback on possible safety upgrades on several streets in Lansdale during a traffic study presentation on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024.
 By Dan Sokil | The Reporter   

Ken Rodoff of York Avenue said his concern is drivers who speed near York and Cannon, where an elementary school and two churches have kids walking often, and asked if traffic on Cannon could be studied too.

“South Cannon Ave has a very wide street, has a lot of cars going fast, not a lot of things to slow people down. What can we do to get that looked at as well?” he said. Armitage answered that the study streets examined so far were based on prior complaints at public safety committee meetings, and the chief said Cannon could be considered for a future study: “I agree, it fits every criteria,” Trail said.

Other residents asked if the town could add more flashers at crosswalks on Hancock that currently don’t have those lights meant to slow drivers, and if the engineer and police could look into speeding on Lansdale Avenue. Another asked if the speed slowing fixes on side streets would shift traffic back to thoroughfares like Main Street, and Armitage said that was the intent.

Mike Sarnocinski said on his street, the 500 block of Delaware Ave, several recent accidents have shown the speeding there is only getting worse. “I’ve lived there 42 years, and the last three or four years have been the worst I’ve ever seen. I’m afraid to put my grandchildren in the car at night, when traffic is coming up off of Susquehanna and Hancock. People are always in a hurry — no one really cares any more about other people,” he said.

Sue Sarnocinski added that she’s seen several cars sideswiped by drivers who lose control passing over a dip in the roadway, and asked the engineer and police to look at trees and bushes covering the stop signs there too.

    A damaged car is towed away from the scene of an accident at Cannon and Columbia Avenues in Lansdale on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024.
 By James Short   

Kelly Peachey said near Delaware and Valley Forge Road, “I hear accidents outside of my window, like, daily. And you don’t want that, but you hear it,” and asked if the engineer and police could change the timing of the double traffic signals on Valley Forge at Whites and Allentown Roads. Armitage said PennDOT recommendations are that signal timings be reevaluated every three to five years or if a major development is done, and the town is currently upgrading the camera detection systems on some signals, but that specific intersection, “I think that’s something we do need to look at again.”

Kevin Dodge of Sycamore said most of his neighbors trace their troubles to the traffic signal at Main and North Wales Road, where Lansdale’s borders meet both Upper Gwynedd and Montgomery Townships, and said they thought the turn restrictions for a few hours each day would not be enough, and speed humps “would probably please most of us.”

“I know you mentioned a big cost difference between putting up a sign and having speed humps. I agree. But that cost difference is much smaller than just one single pedestrian incident with a car, which is why we’re all here,” he said.

Dan Sigmans of Columbia asked if the town could consider changing more two-way stops to four-way stops. Armitage said the town could look into doing so, but would have to meet PennDOT criteria.

    Traffic backs up at the intersection of Main and Broad streets in Lansdale. (MediaNews Group file photo)
  

And resident Chris Flyzik asked if the engineer could look into the timing of the signals at Main and Broad Streets where delayed left turn signals cause backups, and Armitage said he recently studied that signal when Railroad Avenue was converted to one-way, and any changes there must prioritize train traffic first.

“I worked with PennDOT on that signal, and they said it was the most complicated interaction that they have in the state, of signals and trains,” he said.

After roughly an hour of comments, Armitage asked for further feedback to be sent to him at [email protected] by Nov. 10 for inclusion in an update of the study, and Trail said he recently found a news article from nearly half a century ago that sounded very familiar.

“It was an article from The Reporter from 1976, where the borough was going to undertake capital improvements ‘to combat the traffic nightmare in the borough of Lansdale.’ I think we’re moving at a pretty good pace here,” he said.

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