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ALLENTOWN -- Here are five things gleaned from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce's annual transportation summit, which was held Wednesday at the Mack Customer Center. Big money is planned for big transportation projects. Unveiling the $458.3 million draft 2017-20 Transportation Improvement Program, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley called it the "largest single investment" in the region's transportation infrastructure. Among new projects being planed: the 13th Street interchange at Route 22 in the Easton area; Route 309 resurfacing and work at the Tilghman Street interchange; and work on several western Lehigh County state roads, including Routes 222, 100 and 863. Have your say. Bradley said people travel almost 14 million miles each day along Lehigh Valley roads, with MacArthur and Airport roads in Lehigh County being the heaviest used. If you are among the high-volume commuters, you might want to speak out on the draft transportation improvement document. Comments are being taken between June 14 and July 14. Go to lvpc.org or call 610-264-4544 for more information. The train won't stop here soon. Anybody who is pining for a return to passenger rail service from the Lehigh Valley shouldn't expect it down the pipe. "At the end of the day, the real question is a very difficult one that requires a lot of funding and a lot of partnerships," Bradley said. Bradley and other Lehigh Valley officials were recently rebuffed in their efforts to host an excursion via Amtrak on a Norfolk Southern line. Bradley said a Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. study from several years ago put the cost of restoring rail service in the "big billions of dollars." She said there are no federal or private sector plans in the works, but local officials are still exploring possibilities. Where will they get the money? Robert Clark, New Jersey division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the Garden State's U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, support increasing passenger- and freight-train transit from New York City into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among the obstacles: officials are having trouble trying to find $16 billion to fund new tunnels into New York, he said. Mack Trucks played a cool host for the event. Were you expecting us to say something different? Perhaps organizers could hold it under a tent along Route 22, or at Lehigh Valley International Airport, but the climate-controlled Mack Customer Center, with its huge truck cabs, road signs and related transportation items in the background, made for an ideal setting. From The Morning Call.
ALLENTOWN -- Here are five things gleaned from the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce's annual transportation summit, which was held Wednesday at the Mack Customer Center.
Big money is planned for big transportation projects. Unveiling the $458.3 million draft 2017-20 Transportation Improvement Program, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley called it the "largest single investment" in the region's transportation infrastructure. Among new projects being planed: the 13th Street interchange at Route 22 in the Easton area; Route 309 resurfacing and work at the Tilghman Street interchange; and work on several western Lehigh County state roads, including Routes 222, 100 and 863.
Have your say. Bradley said people travel almost 14 million miles each day along Lehigh Valley roads, with MacArthur and Airport roads in Lehigh County being the heaviest used. If you are among the high-volume commuters, you might want to speak out on the draft transportation improvement document. Comments are being taken between June 14 and July 14. Go to lvpc.org or call 610-264-4544 for more information.
The train won't stop here soon. Anybody who is pining for a return to passenger rail service from the Lehigh Valley shouldn't expect it down the pipe. "At the end of the day, the real question is a very difficult one that requires a lot of funding and a lot of partnerships," Bradley said. Bradley and other Lehigh Valley officials were recently rebuffed in their efforts to host an excursion via Amtrak on a Norfolk Southern line. Bradley said a Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. study from several years ago put the cost of restoring rail service in the "big billions of dollars." She said there are no federal or private sector plans in the works, but local officials are still exploring possibilities.
Where will they get the money? Robert Clark, New Jersey division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the Garden State's U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, support increasing passenger- and freight-train transit from New York City into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among the obstacles: officials are having trouble trying to find $16 billion to fund new tunnels into New York, he said.
Mack Trucks played a cool host for the event. Were you expecting us to say something different? Perhaps organizers could hold it under a tent along Route 22, or at Lehigh Valley International Airport, but the climate-controlled Mack Customer Center, with its huge truck cabs, road signs and related transportation items in the background, made for an ideal setting. From The Morning Call.