Residents have pushed for pedestrian safety fixes
The next round of street safety upgrades in Lansdale’s West Ward could appear soon.
Borough officials said Monday that new stripes in local roads could start appearing soon, as no-parking zones and crosswalks are repainted as part of the town’s latest pedestrian safety push.
“They are going to start painting next week: the piano keys, the stop bars. I was out last Friday for the sightlines along Cannon Avenue, and some of the other intersections pointed out by the West Ward coalition — in a week or two, I’ll have the results back from that,” said police Chief Ryan Devlin.
“Keep this in mind: you’re going to lose a significant amount of parking in the west ward, if we implement the sightlines. That’s another conversation we can have, later on,” he said.
In early February residents from that ward petitioned council for road and sidewalk safety improvements, the continuation of several years of complaints about traffic throughout town and drivers speeding and ignoring stop signs on the town’s side streets. Residents have continued to raise concerns as several accidents have happened along those studied streets in recent years, and asked for added stop signs, crosswalk stripes, no-parking lines at intersections to improve sightlines, and to consider higher-cost fixes like bump-outs or added sidewalks where possible.
Later that month, those residents announced they had formed a coalition to ask council for fast fixes in the area, and council and police vowed to meet with the group to find areas where they could act quickly. In March police said they had begun some of those efforts, including changes to traffic flow near York Avenue Elementary School, as those in the area asked for more fixes and faster action.
In a social media post Sunday, the borough announced that local public works crews plan to start “season roadway painting work” at “several intersections throughout the borough” as soon as April 6.
“Improvements will include new stop bars and road markings to visually identify the areas that parking is NOT PERMITTED in the proximity of these intersections. These improvements are being implemented in an effort to improve safety for pedestrians, bicyclists and the motoring public,” the borough said.
During the April 1 committee meeting, Devlin added details on recent activity, including in-person evaluations of the intersections raised by the neighbors done by himself and the borough’s traffic engineer, and speed studies measuring traffic velocities there.
“I think we hit almost every block” in the study area, and found no major outliers, the chief said.
“The average speed is between 19 and 26 miles per hour, on each of those blocks. We’re timing thousands of vehicles,” Devlin said.
Throughout the West Ward, he added, police data showed a total of 78 traffic stops were conducted in February 2025, and 60 similar stops in the same month in 2026, with that number at 55 traffic stops for March 2026.
“So we are doing enforcement out there. As far as the line painting, we’re looking at the sight lines, there is progress being made,” he said.
Resident Alex Sickler asked about larger speed-related changes, like adding speed humps or delineators on certain high-traffic streets or converting any to one-way. Devlin said the committee and council could examine larger fixes after the first round of smaller upgrades.
“Let’s see where this gets us, and we can always resume later on. Let’s start small, let’s see what the line painting does, and the sightlines, and see if that helps with the problem,” Devlin said.
Councilwoman Mary Fuller added that she had seen a test speed hump already in place near the town’s public works complex on Ninth Street, and Devlin said he’s working with neighbors to identify spots to install those “fairly soon.” Fuller then asked about specific fixes in the area of York Avenue Elementary School, and councilman Andrew Carroll said neighbors in that area had a long to-do list.
“Two of the biggest concerns were the six incident intersections, and the pick-up and drop off (hours). That stuff’s all being carried out, but that’s not as fast as putting paint down,” Carroll said.
Devlin added that he and borough staff plan to add the ‘piano key’ crosswalks around all four corners of the elementary school, in addition to the cones recently added meant to limit those streets to one-way only during drop off hours, which “seems to be working.” Police have held talks with school administrators to look into other upgrades.
“They’re going to try to work on a plan to speed up the process, and get the traffic off of Mitchell (Avenue), between York (Avenue) and Mount Vernon (Street). So there is some stuff in the works,” the chief said.
Devlin added that some of the safety fixes like line striping will be done by town employees at a lower cost, but could take longer to schedule around other assignments for borough public works staff.
“It just takes time, and we’re trying to do it in-house to save some money. If we did everything this book recommends,” Devlin said, holding up an inch-thick copy of the traffic study. “It’s a significant effort. We are trying to do as much as we can, throughout the whole borough,” the chief said.
“It’s driver havoc that we can’t really fix. People driving on their phones, while they’re not paying attention, we can’t really fix. The stop signs are there, they have to stop at them. But we are trying to make it safer,” Devlin said.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on April 15 and the public safety committee next meets at 6:30 p.m. on May 6, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org
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