SUNBURY—About a hundred people gathered at the Shikellamy High School Wednesday night to hear from PennDOT about a major traffic project coming to Northumberland in 2017. Reconstruction of the intersection of Route 11 and Route 147 will take two years to complete and will cost $12-million.
After presenting solutions such as lengthening left turn lanes and increasing turning space for truckers, project manager Jon Sweeley fielded questions from a resistant audience. “As we’ve also stated, there’s no way to reconstruct these roadways without some sort of impact, without some sort of backups in traffic. While we’ve done our best to minimize those, it is inevitable that this type of construction project will cause some impact to the community.”
Tom Fitzgerald of Point Township says PennDOT needs to clarify where residents along the proposed detours, King and Orange Streets, will park during the two year project. “The PennDOT presentation was pretty casual about how those people will have to park someplace else. They really need to find out where someplace else is going to be.”
Northumberland Mayor Len Zboray was among those commenting, he who garnered applause from the unsettled crowd. “If Duke and Water Street is closed down in the borough of Northumberland, they might as well put a pall over the whole borough because the traffic will not be able to flow through our borough.”
The mayor did not express outright opposition to the project, but he did suggest an alternative that would keep the pivotal intersection open. The phase that includes the intersection of Route 147 and Route 11 is expected to take eight to ten weeks. (Kory Kramer)
