System-wide | Aviation | Bicycling | Bridges | Freight | Highway | Parking | Pedestrian | Transit
Highway
Traffic congestion
Congestion continues to be a priority transportation concern for Chester County, as expressed in the Landscapes2 public opinion survey (12) and focus group discussions (13). Chester County is experiencing increased congestion largely brought on by the dramatic population and employment growth. Travel time surveys conducted by planning commission staff over the last nine years have documented decreasing peak travel speeds on a wide sampling of the County’s major road system. Conversely, there have not been significant increases in the capacity of the highway network.
- Primary causes of congestion
Highway congestion in Chester County is simple to define—more demand or volume on a specific road or intersection than its given capacity. Throughout Chester County, traffic signals could function more efficiently; the lack of turning lanes causes safety problems as well as congestion; in many older commercial corridors, poorly designed access points contribute to traffic delays; and traffic incidents (crashes, road or bridge closures and construction projects) cause backups and diversions. Additionally, a general lack of flexibility in work hours forces workers to commute in the same basic time periods. - Congestion within all Landscapes
Traffic congestion issues impact all landscapes in the County. Through-traffic is a problem in many urban centers and rural villages. Suburban landscapes have limited intersection capacity. In several cases, peak hour congestion forces traffic to divert to adjacent roads in urban, suburban and rural landscapes. For example, while US 202 bypasses West Chester Borough, congestion on parts of Route 202 forces traffic to divert through the borough. - The good and the bad of new capacity
To address congestion new roadway capacity can enhance economic development in a community. In some cases, revitalization will be limited until traffic problems are addressed. One measure of the economic health of a community is the level of traffic congestion, yet congestion wastes time, energy and money. New capacity on the other hand, can induce unanticipated, unplanned development in adjacent areas inconsistent with a community’s plans.
Aging infrastructure creates widespread maintenance needs
While the County’s transportation infrastructure is an incredible asset, roadway maintenance concerns are present throughout the County on all types of roads, from expressways to local roads. Most of the County’s expressways were built nearly 50 years ago. The shoulders bridges, ramps and roadbeds need extensive reconstruction. The reconstruction of these major roadways will be very costly and—at present funding levels—may potentially preclude capacity-expansion projects, even where capacity is obviously needed. To the other extreme, many of the rural roads are merely converted trails and cartways that have never been reconstructed to contemporary standards. The result is a higher maintenance cost.
Limited funding & overwhelming demand
Efforts to reduce traffic congestion and improve highway safety are limited by the availability of funding. While funding levels have actually increased in recent years, the buying power is less because of dramatic escalation in construction costs. The construction cost index has increased 100% since 1996. Funding levels have not kept pace with the rate of material inflation. The effect of this funding shortage has been a backlog of capital projects, higher priorities to system-maintenance, increased pressure to scale back capacity-adding highway projects, and increased interests in alternative financing including roadway tolling and asset privatization.
Specific to Chester County, the Planning Commission’s 2007 Transportation Improvement Inventory identified current transportation needs (for all modes) at $5.7 billion; comparably, there are approximately $400 million in programmed capital improvements in the Region’s Transportation Improvement Program (for all modes) that will directly affect Chester County over the next four years. The recent trend of unprecedented residential and employment experienced in Chester County suggests that the disparity between transportation needs and availability funding will continue to increase.
While funding limits may preclude new capacity projects, the limits also impact road and bridge maintenance. Municipalities do not have enough Liquid Fuels Funds to cover their needs ranging from pothole to traffic signals to snowplowing. PennDOT must make difficult decisions between the major funding categories in maintenance. Certainly the aging infrastructure adds emergency costs to all state, county and municipal programs.
Limited means for leveraging alternative funding
In light of the funding shortage for transportation improvements, there is a need to leverage capital funding through alternative means. However, few opportunities exist for municipalities to leverage transportation funds, and their usage within the County has been limited. Ten municipalities have enacted traffic impact fee ordinances (Act 209); Transportation Partnerships (Act 47) have been used by two municipalities; PennDOT has used Highway Occupancy Permits (HOP) as a means to fund improvements; many municipalities rely on informal developer negotiations to leverage improvement funding.
Safety
- Physical roadway conditions contribute to safety problems
Safety problems are widely distributed throughout all landscapes in the County. The causes of problems include: the need for intersection channelization, poor access management, pedestrian and bicycle conflicts, sight distance problems, poor intersection alignment and the improper mix of higher speed through traffic with slower local traffic. Efforts to address these safety issues are limited by the fact that many roads and intersections in the County are the result of an evolution from trails to cartways to roads: as such, many have never been brought up to contemporary design standards, have limited right-of-way widths, and are constrained by roadway encroachments such as environmental features, walls, trees, shrubs, and mailboxes. - A balance between scenic preservation and safety
Many roadways within the County can be described as “bucolic” and are valued as a scenic asset (14). These roadways generally have narrow travel lanes and little if any shoulders, which causes safety hazards for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Residents throughout the County have expressed concern that widening rural roadways will increase speeding, encourage more traffic, and thus increase safety concerns. Therefore, a conflict exists between widening a roadway for the benefit of improving user safety and maintaining the scenic qualities the roadway. - Driver distractions contributing to safety problems
Consistent with regional and national trends, young drivers (under 25) are involved in a disproportionately high percentage of accidents (15) in Chester County. Additionally, cell phone usage is a growing roadway safety concern. The familiarity of roundabouts for County residents is limited. While there are various driver education efforts that are ongoing in the County, a lack of driver education and experience and driver distractions remain contributing factors to roadway safety problems. - Improving safety may increase congestion
Various communities around the County have proposed and/or implemented measures to improve roadway safety, such as traffic calming or additional traffic signals. Some measures to improve safety, could increase congestion and reduce overall mobility. This raises the issue of tradeoffs between mobility and safety. In all cases safety should be the priority but some elements of mobility are important.
(12) Survey results
(13) Focus group summary
(14) Several roadways have been designated as Scenic Byways; townships have also designated scenic roadways.
(15) In Chester County, drivers under 25 years old were involved in 32% of crashes (between 1999-2004), yet this age group represented 14% of licensed drivers (Source: PennDOT, 2005).
Printable version of ALL issues (PDF, 83 KB)
System-wide | Aviation | Bicycling | Bridges | Freight | Highway | Parking | Pedestrian | Transit