Hamilton Crossings: Looking into the Crystal Ball.

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#HamiltonCrossings

Recently, the Morning Call outlined what I see as a wakeup call for Lower Macungie. Basically it amounts to a Crystal Ball moment. Re-read the below article about Upper Saucon’s traffic issues at 309 and Center Valley Parkway and substitute the bypass for 309 and Lower Macungie for Saucon Valley. Sound eerily familiar?

Center Valley Parkway intersection improvements a decade away

 

A pair of trucks crashed, trapping one driver in his cab, last month on West Saucon Valley Road near Center Valley Parkway in Upper Saucon Township, a collision one area driver says is indicative of traffic problems in the area. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW, THE MORNING CALL)

A pair of trucks crashed, trapping one driver in his cab, last month on West Saucon Valley Road near Center Valley Parkway in Upper Saucon Township, a collision one area driver says is indicative of traffic problems in the area. (APRIL BARTHOLOMEW, THE MORNING CALL)

Officials in Saucon are currently asking employers to stagger work hours in an attempt to deal with traffic plaguing the area. Similar to Hamilton Crossings proposal in Lower Macungie, in 2006 developers with projects in the area contributed one time funds for quick fix improvements to get projects approved. This included additional lanes and signal upgrades. (again, sound familiar?)

This knowing full well that a more permanent solution of grade separation was one day needed. What that means is essentially a new bridge over 309 eliminating the signalized intersection where gridlock and problems like the above photo occur. The proposed solution at the time was estimated to be complete 2 years ago at a cost of 20 million. Obviously that hasn’t yet materialized and turns out that mark was nearly 20 years off.

Today, with the mess beyond critical mass the Morning Call reports the end game solution is now an additional 20 years away with an estimated cost ballooning to 30 million. 20 years from now you can bet the final cost will be 40 million plus. Meanwhile residents have to live with the mess for nearly 30 years. Why? Failure to force developers to pay for their impacts up front.

Look very closely at this scenario and compare it to Lower Macungie, Hamilton Crossings and the 222 bypass. Our scenario is actually worse since not only will we have to pay down the road, we are being asked to pay now as well to the tune of 250,000 dollars in improvements to Hamilton Boulevard. Add to that the real kick in face that when we have to deal with this issue likely within the next 20 years we’ll still be paying 50% of our taxes to the developer if we participate in TIF. This is money we will need to address issues that inevitably will materialize because of this and other projects along the bypass.

 

Just like Saucon Valley in 2006 the money now is for the quick fix. Improvements needed just to satisfy Penndot for permits to get a project built. In some ways it actually makes the situation worse for us in Lower Mac. Instead of addressing the bypass so it functions as a bypass the gameplan is to increase capacity on Hamilton Boulevard. This will pretty much kill any plans for the road to evolve into a Main St. Boulevard. Instead, we get a classic costly STROAD. In fact instead of one road (move cars quickly and efficiently from A to B) and one street (a value capture mechanism where businesses can flourish.) we’re building two side by side STROADS.

The more I think about LMT participating in TIF the more I think it’s foolish. It’s crazy to think this project will not go forward without TIF. Therefore, this amounts to nothing short of charity for a developer paid for by you and I.

What do you think about this project? I am looking forward to hearing from residents on both sides of this issue over the next 2 months before LMT votes. Please contact me at ronbeitler@gmail.com.

More information about Hamilton Crossings Development.

Learn more about Lower Macungie Township Issues.

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Development watch: Hamilton Crossings

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Two items on tonight’s agenda dealing with Hamilton Crossings. First, it’s been determined that the County will not be participating in TIF. Moving forward the township must now decide if we are. Tonight, the timeline for moving forward to a vote on this issue will be outlined. The specific decision will be whether or not to hold a public hearing. This consists of authorizing staff to advertise so we can conduct a hearing sometime in May. (I will post  relevant dates when set) If approved at the May hearing we would consider two items:

1. The creation of the TIF district.
2. If Lower Macungie is to participate in the TIF district. |

Both items would be considered as proposed ordinances. These ordinances if supported would then be advertised for adoption sometime in June. At the same time the project will continue to move through land development process.

My thoughts: I am heading into the next 2 months with the mindset that the developer and those who support the TIF must make a case for it. The prior BOC which I did not sit on publicly supported TIF. They did this via a resolution asking Lehigh County to participate. (At the time the public narrative was all 3 district, county and township were needed for TIF to move forward. Apparently that is not the current interpretation.) If I were on the board last year I would have voted against the resolution of support.
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Lower Macungie Commissioners Agenda Preview 3/20/14

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FYI –  In these previews I may indicate thoughts on an issue, but it in no way means my mind is set. During a critical hearing for the Jaindl issue, a Commissioner spoke before public comment outlining he was voting to move forward the project regardless of what people said during public comment. That was wrong. Public debate was circumvented when the Commissioner indicated his mind was made up.

My hope is by blogging I open the door for conversations. One of my biggest issues with the Jaindl debacle was folks didn’t truly understand what was happening until it was “too late”. I plan on doing everything I can to make sure residents have background information on issues. This is one mechanism to do that. I hope people find it useful. Please contact me at ronbeitler@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns about any issues.

Township Board of Commissioners 3/20/14 – Agenda with detail here

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RIP Lower Macungie Patch.

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This morning I finally took the Lower Macungie Patch off my social media feeds.

Since AOL completely fumbled the once promising venture, today it’s no more than a tabloid. Gone is the unique hyper local content generated by local editors and bloggers who were from the communities they served. We now have crickets on the local boards. The headlines consist of the kind of stuff you  find on TMZ and supermarket tabloids.

Very sad. Had high hopes for Patch. Seemed like we had 3 of the more successful ones locally in Emmaus, Upper Macungie and Lower Macungie. At one time it was a website I visited daily. When patch was cookin on all cylinders it provided an important service keeping residents informed on what was going on locally and providing a robust platform for neighborhood conversation and interaction. Content covered local gov’t, schools, neighborhood news, community events ect. Now it’s pretty much your standard celebrity gossip and national human interest stuff.

The local uniqueness is all gone now replaced with generic  content you can get on 100 other sites that are better put together.

Celebrity gossip and spam. What once was a very promising hyperlocal news website was completely fumbled by it's parent company.

Celebrity gossip and spam. What once was a very promising hyperlocal news website was completely fumbled by it’s parent company.

 

Followup to #repairpriorities post

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Read this in today’s paper.

Now the danger here is I know very little details about this project aside from what I read in this article this AM. So if I’m missing something here please fill me in.

Summary: 

Pennsylvania is committing $5 million to help ease traffic into Pocono Raceway.

The announcement came during a Pennsylvania Capitol ceremony celebrating Pocono Raceway’s estimated $257.5 million contribution to the region’s economy in 2013.
– Express times

 

Yesterday’s post about a recent Taxpayers for Common Sense and Smart Growth American study highlighted an alarming deficiency between money spent on road expansion projects and money spent on maintaining the existing road network. This fundamental problem is one of the reasons we just faced a gas tax. (now the 5th highest in the nation)

In my opinion above is exhibit ‘A’. How can this not be classified as a transportation pork barrel project?  What am I missing?

It’s 5 million dollars spent on hyperlocal capacity improvements to benefit one racetrack seasonally.  This road widening serves literally no other purpose that I can gather from a quick google map recon and a little familiarity with the area.

When we talk about Pennsylvania spending a disproportionate amount on road expansion (providing marginal benefits) compared to maintaining the roads and bridges we currently have in place, unless I’m missing something this really should be viewed as the poster child for the problem. Why on earth is a Republican Governor supporting this? (could have something to do with an election coming up..)

5 Million dollars for road widening project to service exclusively Pocono raceway.

5 Million dollars for road widening project to service exclusively Pocono raceway.

 

 

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Pennsylvania spends more on road expansion than repair

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Pennsylvania spends more on new road expansion than we do on maintaining our existing network – despite financial liabilities mounting & conditions not improving. Meanwhile, we just raised the gas tax.

Here is a link to an eye opening study by Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common sense.

State departments of transportation (DOTs) are spending more money building new roads than maintaining the ones they have—despite the fact that roads are crumbling, financial liabilities are mounting and conditions are not improving for America’s drivers.
-Executive Summary

Here’s the statistical breakdown for PA:
*dollar figures in millions

Average annual state expenditures on road expansion versus repair, 2009–2011

Average annual state expenditures on road expansion versus repair, 2009–2011 From “Repair Priorities 2014 Transportation spending strategies to save taxpayer dollars and improve roads.

So we have above representing Pennsylvania’s most recent spending reality. (Again remember, we just raised gas taxes to address a “crisis” level concern. Which of course is pretty much universally acknowledged as a band-aid at best.) This in my opinion is a problem in and of itself, but meanwhile here are the results of this failed strategy…

Screen Shot 2014-03-12 at 2.23.40 PM (1)

Here is another little tidbit from the report PA specific:
Pennsylvania as stated above is spending 877 million a year in repair. What’s the liability? 2,203 million. That’s a deficiency of 1,326 million annually.

Pennsylvania reflects the Nationwide trend of spending billions for marginal benefit. “States spent $20.4 billion on road expansion each year between 2009 and 2011. During that time our state-owned road network increased by 8,822 lane-miles, less than 1 percent. Meanwhile, America’s driving measured in vehicle-miles traveled, remained fairly stable during this two-year period, yet traffic congestion in urban areas did not change. It’s a statistical fact: States’ investments in expansion are yielding little gain for drivers despite the substantial cost.”

My question is whose going take some leadership in Pennsylvania? Road conditions are deteriorating yet our spending problems are focused on expansion which at best provide negligible results in level of service improvements. Whose going to break the broken cycle?

I’m looking towards our local state officials for leadership here. @Senator Pat Browne, @Representative Ryan Mackenzie, @Representative Justin Simmons, @Representative Michael Schlossberg (House transportation committee). Anyone paying attention to this?

 

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Thoughts from Lehigh Valley Developer Symposium

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Nice event today at Desales. Great work by the organizers. 3 presentations of note. First on economic forecasting, another about the large projects going on in the valley, (Criz, Niz & Chrin) and lastly what I was really interested in was current real estate development trends. #LVBRES

#LowerMacungie was mentioned in the final 1 hour presentation no less then a dozen times due to our explosive growth in the area of Industrial distribution warehouses. One of the panelists was Mr. David Jaindl of the Jaindl Land Development Co. The panel was moderated by Don Cunningham of LVEDC.

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Lower Macungie meetings now viewable on youtube.

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We’ve had webcasts for awhile now in Lower Macungie, but the prior delivery method was unstable on some OS systems (I always had trouble on macs) and also was it  hard to fast forward and rewind and the feature sometimes didn’t work at all.

Starting this year the township has been uploading and archiving videos on a new youtube channel.

This accomplished two things:

1. Fast forwarding and rewinding is now alot easier so when referencing a corresponding agenda residents can find the topic they are looking for without having to watch the whole meeting.

2. You can now quickly find and reference past meeting videos archived on the townships youtube channel.

Also on this website, I maintain an archive of my meeting previews, links to the agenda detail and meeting videos organized chronologically. 

 

Tractor Trailer Ice Issues

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Followup to last night’s meeting which was covered in detail here by WFMZ’s Randy Kraft who always does an excellent job covering LMT.

We spoke about Tractor Trailers and ice issues at length both during the public safety meeting and full board. This issue has been front and center in our area recently:

EDITORIAL: Pennsylvania needs a tougher ‘ice missile’ law

This winter has generated many similar but less serious incidents. Steven Crouse of Palmer Township avoided serious injury Dec. 16 when ice from a truck came through his windshield on Route 22. On Tuesday night, a driver reported a similar incident on Route 22 in Upper Macungie Township, resulting in minor damage to his car.

 

The goal is to have ice and snow scraped from the tops of tractor-trailers before they leave warehouses, because sheets of ice can fly off and slam into vehicles driving behind them, causing serious injury. Due to land use policies that have inundated our roads with tracter trailers we have to be proactive in dealing with safety issues. This is one of many.

coca cola

Here is the action we took last night: We discussed briefly an ordinance but decided against it. This would be ineffective since we do not have a local police dept. to enforce local ordinances. Further no ordinance could retroactively require existing businesses to install ice scraper devices which I believe should be a goal. And lastly I prefer a strategy that doesn’t involve a regulation of an issue which really should be common sense.

So the second tact proposed was attempting to get local distribution warehouses to voluntarily install ice scrapers such as the units installed at Coca Cola facility in Fogelsville.

It was agreed unanimously to authorize staff to send a letter to all existing distribution warehouses that it is the townships formal stance that we strongly encourage distribution warehouses to voluntarily install ice scrapers and require trucks departing their facilities to utilize them.

Secondly as other warehouses (Jaindl Spring Creek) come through land development we will utilize the process to encourage new buildings to incorporate these structures into design. Unfortunately, the Jaindl MOU makes warehouses a ‘by-right’ use instead of a conditional use which would require a hearing where we could require scrapers. (yet another terrible aspect of the MOU) But still at this point we can appeal to landowners to take responsibility for their development.

The costs of these units pale in comparison to a lawsuit that would surely occur if a truck leaves these facilities and someone dies because of an ‘ice missile;. I would hope that managers at these facilities understand this really should be a no-brainer and even-though we aren’t requiring them to, that they voluntarily install ice scrapers. If they don’t and if it continues to pose a public safety issues the next step would be exploring a possible ordinance and/or supporting stricter state laws.

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Lower Macungie Commissioners Agenda Preview 3/6/14

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Sorry this is late this week… I’ve been down with a cold!

FYI –  In these previews I may indicate thoughts on an issue, but it in no way means my mind is set. During a critical hearing for the Jaindl issue, a Commissioner spoke before public comment outlining he was voting to move forward the project regardless of what people said during public comment. That was wrong. Public debate was circumvented when the Commissioner indicated his mind was made up.

My hope is by blogging I open the door for conversations. One of my biggest issues with the Jaindl debacle was folks didn’t truly understand what was happening until it was “too late”. I plan on doing everything I can to make sure residents have background information on issues. This is one mechanism to do that. I hope people find it useful. Please contact me at ronbeitler@gmail.com if you have any questions or concerns about any issues.

Township Board of Commissioners 3/6/14 – Agenda with detail here
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