Lumber street will be opening any day now! Today, final touches were being completed in the form of line painting. Great work by Macungie Council getting this done and paid for. Clearly having one of the Boroughs main N-S connections on it’s local grid as a pot hole filled dirt road was a major problem.
I want to also give big compliments to the contractor JC & Son excavating. Having a property adjoining the road project I have to say they were nothing but great. Yes, road construction is noisy. That’s a fact of life. The crew however was pleasant and helpful answering my many questions. And looks like they will complete the project on time. (early even?)
17 Ft!! Travel lanes. . . This will most certainly lead to excessive speeds. In almost all cases wide roads are fast roads…
This brings me back to the one criticism I had and feel even more strongly about now that the road is finished. And again note, this isn’t a criticism of council or staff. I happen to think Macungie right now has very good proactive council. This is a criticism of a dated SALDO and the outdated thinking it reflects. SALDO is the set of standards that dictate how we build infrastructure. Oftentimes they are boilerplate standards with no regard for the context of a community.
The fact is (I’d be shocked if it wasn’t) we just built THE fastest road in the Borough. 17 ft travel lanes!!!!! is excessive to the extreme. Federal standards for local roads are 9-12. 17 is pretty much insane. Again, it’s probably the result of what was dictated by the Borough’s SALDO.
This reflects the old bigger is better mentality. One that makes no sense most places but definitely not in a small Borough.
Bigger in terms of streets always means two things:
1. The roads design speed will be much faster than the posted speed
2. More expensive to build and maintain.
This translates to two things. If this road is say 30% too large, it will cost 30% more to maintain long term. And second, when design speed is too fast, people will drive too fast. This is regardless of what the posted speed is.
How do we fix this? I feel strongly that on-street parking should be allowed on at least one side. This would narrow the road and get more value and ROI for taxpayers. It would also go a long way to fixing the Borough (perceived) parking issues. . .
🙂
Macungie’s parking problem?
Now of course I say that tongue in cheek as I honestly believe there is no parking problem in the Borough. Never was, and likely never will be. This is from the standpoint of both a current business owner and also former resident. But as it stands now the Borough now owns ALOT more blacktop. Shouldn’t we get our most bang for the buck out of our new ultra fast ultra big expensive road? (STROAD)