This week, the Lancaster County Transportation Coordinating Committee learned that it would not get any of the $31,055,000 in TIGER II federal funds to pay for “improvements” to Harrisburg Pike.
A committee, The TIGER II Stakeholder Task Force, had picked five projects for the TIGER II application, pulled from the list of 32 projects in last year’s unsuccessful TIGER I application.
Sitting on the TIGER II Stakeholder Task Force were two administrators of High Real Estate Group, that plans to build The Crossings shopping center across from Long’s Park. Perhaps this is the reason that four of the five projects were conditions set by the Manheim Twp. Commissioners in the conditional approval they gave the Crossings shopping center.
These four projects were: (1) Rebuilding the U.S. 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange; (2) widening lanes and intersection/signalization improvements on Harrisburg Pike from Toys R Us to the Norfolk Southern RR bridge; (3) building a walking and bicycle trail along Harrisburg Pike (4) Provide transit shelters, benches and bike racks along Harrisburg Pike.
The remaining project was to “Connect Liberty Street to College Avenue and Harrisburg Pike to Stadium Drive”. These streets will give easy access to F&M’s football stadium when it is moved to the former Armstrong lands. Keith Orris, top administrator of F&M, was on this same Task Force that chose the TIGER II projects.
The TIGER II Stakeholder Task Force Meeting at which the five projects were chosen was a closed meeting, not open to the public.
This should come as no surprise to anyone.
I am somewhat surprised they did not get every penny they asked for but give them time…it will come through for them in the end.
To the writer of Comment #1: Your comment shows a defeatist attitude. What you need to do is to contact JAMES COWHEY, executive director of the Lancaster County Transportation Coordinating Committee ([email protected] (717) 299-8333 Fax : 717-299-3659) and tell him that you don’t want any tax dollars going to pay for the infrastructure for High’s planned Crossings shopping center. Tell him that the public opposes the Crossings because of its closeness to Park City and Long’s Park, also because many other shopping centers in the area have vacant stores.
Tell Cowhey that the Rt. 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange, even if it is not perfect, does a reasonably good job of handling the traffic it has now. Other roads and intersections are in greater need of immediate work, including basic repairs. Tell him that there is something wrong with PennDOT if they can’t plan for more than a 10-year life on a major project such as the $45 million reconstruction, completed in 2001, of the Rt. 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange..
Also, after next Tuesday’s election, write to the newly-elected state and federal officials and tell them that you any oppose any government funds being allocated to rebuild the Rt. 30/Harrisburg Pike interchange.
I wrote comment #1 and it may be a defeatist attitude; however, I don’t know how anyone with a working knowledge of Lancaster County history over the last 15 years can honestly believe anything else.
Do you remember what John Barley did with the dump? How about John Fry and what he did with a rubber stamp, or waiver, from every regulatory agency and zero oversight.
And how about the piece de resistance…the downtown hotel and convention center. Just last month, while driving up South Queen my wife posed the question…exactly who approved the cockamamie entrance/drive to the hotel that was holding up traffic. I told her no one did.
She asked what I meant. I told her that High got a waiver from the State, who has final say in such matters, and was given Carte Blanche to do whatever the heck they wanted.
Call me defeatist if you like but the Crossings will be built and I would lay even money that sometime in the future, not only will my travels up South Queen be delayed by cars backed up into a deficient drive, but by a trolley as well.
In other words, High and F&M determined which projects would be submitted for Federal grants. It is no surprise that funding for special interests would be rejected.