PennDOT Announces Plans To Improve Schuylkill Expressway
CONSHOHOCKEN (CBS) -- PennDOT is announcing long-range plans to solve traffic problems on I-76, the Schuylkill Expressway, the result of a study that started in 2014.
There is no one quick fix, said PennDOT secretary Leslie Richards.
"It's not one thing that's going to fix the I-76 corridor it's a mixture of many things," Richards said.
Among those many things, using the shoulder as another traffic lane Between the Blue Route and the Turnpike, and westbound between Roosevelt Boulevard and Belmont. Richards said PennDOT is working closely with police and emergency responders in design and planning of shoulder usage.
"To ensure that emergency service response procedures and plans are addressed and incorporated for the safety of all travelers."
Richards said the planning and engineering will take five years, before construction would begin. PennDOT officials visited Virginia to see how shoulder lane usage is working there.
Other parts of the plan include increasing mass transit service, with improvements to the Conshohocken station, smart signs on the highway that would show parking spaces available at train stations and when the next train is arriving, metering on-ramps to control the flow of traffic merging in, the modernization of traffic signals on roads that run along I-76, and also improvements to the Schuylkill River Trail.