SUNBURY — PennDOT Connects is a new initiative to enhance local engagement and improve transportation project planning, design and delivery. PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards was a guest on WKOK Sunrise talking about their efforts.
Richards said, “Looking at comprehensive plans and long-term visions, and making sure that our projects helps those communities reach their long-term goals. We will be looking at sidewalks and bicycle corridors and storm water issues, economic development, freight, transit, and just making sure we can help those communities.”
James Saylor, Transportation Planning Director of SEDA-COG is working with PennDOT on the PennDOT Connects effort, “We are building in transparent, reliable, and repeatable process…so that some of the things that PennDOT is already doing in our area, on projects where it’s warranted and the issues have emerged…we’re trying to build a process where every community has the opportunity and knows to come to the table, knows how to document their goals and knows at what point the process to bring them in so they can be incorporated in the project in a meaningful way.”
And Richards says this is good news for those who want more access to biking paths, “Every project, we will be looking at where the existing trails are, where are those gaps and can that be fit in to this project. Maybe it’s just that right of way can be bought at this time and the trail can come in later. Or, maybe that we can actually build the trail and put in that missing link.”
You can hear more from Richards and Saylor from WKOK Sunrise online at www.wkok.com. (Ali Stevens)
