Lancaster County Planning Commission Press Release: Lancaster… On May 10, 2010, Lancaster County Transportation Technical Committees held a meeting to discuss the crisis in transportation funding facing the Commonwealth and all counties and the fact we all need to work together to make adequate transportation funding a priority.
“Lancaster County has a backlog of $586 million in major transportation projects that the county cannot advance due to insufficient funding. An additional $20.5 million in annual road and bridge maintenance and rehabilitation and transit costs must also be deferred,” stated Mr. James R. Cowhey, Executive Director of the Lancaster County Planning Commission (LCPC).
Some of the funding that was assumed as part of State Act 44 is now lost due to the federal government’s rejection of Pennsylvania’s application to toll portions of I-80. This leaves critical transportation projects across the state stalled and in jeopardy. A new report released on May 3 by the state Transportation Advisory Committee outlines a $3.5 billion annual funding gap between available revenues and funding needed to maintain existing state and local highway and bridge and transit systems.
“For Lancaster County, the loss of funding that was assumed as part of State Act 44 means our county has $8 million per year less to spend on vital transportation needs,” stated Mr. Cowhey.
The transportation projects that cannot advance in Lancaster County unless transportation funding is made a priority, are crucial to the county’s economic development, to creation of new jobs and to the future mobility of county residents. The unfunded projects are located on the county’s busiest corridors where congestion will get worse in the years ahead and the cost of providing needed infrastructure will grow larger. The backlog of County transportation projects include:
| Relocation of U.S. 30 (from PA 896 to PA 41) | $225,000,000 |
| PA 72 Bypass of Manheim Borough | $100,000,000 |
| U.S. 30 and Centerville Road Interchange | $30,000,000 |
| U.S. 30 and Harrisburg Pike Interchange | $30,000,000 |
| Harrisburg Pike roadway and multimodal improvements |
$41,000,000 |
| Willow Street rerouting of PA 272 through traffic | $50,000,000 |
| $586,000,000 |
Ongoing project costs
| Intersection/Transportation System Management Improvements in various corridors |
$5,000,000/yr |
| Local bridge replacements/rehabilitations | $5,000,000/yr |
| Capital Red Rose Corridor-commuter rail operations | $10,000,000/yr |
| RRTA Service expansion | $500,000/yr |
| $20,500,000/yr |
“In order to attract new business investment to Lancaster County and ensure that our citizens have the quality of roads, transit and other mobility alternatives they need, Lancaster County must provide a transportation system with adequate capacity and safety. “ Without increased revenues, over $600 million dollars in critical transportation projects are in jeopardy,” stated Mr. Cowhey.
Transportation investments play a central role in economic development and job creation. A benefit cost analysis that was conducted for the road and multi-modal transportation improvement projects recommended by the Harrisburg Pike Transportation and Land Use Study, for example, found that the projects will generate over 1,700 jobs during construction and play a central role in creating and sustaining 13,178 long-term jobs from planned mixed use, infill developments along the corridor.
Lancaster County has a large number of bridges and additional funding is critical to preserving these bridges in a good state of repair. Approximately 25% of the 729 State bridges in the county are structurally deficit and 27% of the 258 locally-owned bridges are structurally deficient.
How many of these “major transportation projects” are worth the taxpayer dollars they would cost? For example, rebuilding the US30 and Harrisburg Pike interchange is projected to cost $30 million, even though it was completely rebuilt barely a decade ago.