Finding Alternative Transportation

Only recently has this nation become concerned with CO2 emissions, and ecofriendly transportation options. Although it may be called a new awakening, or a transportation renaissance, truth be told, gasoline is the most expensive it has ever been, and isn’t getting any cheaper. In a revolt against high gas prices, consumers are protesting with their dollars, and demanding another option.

There are many solutions to this crisis, and most can be utilized today, at little to no extra cost. Public transit is a great ecofriendly way to travel, and often times do not add time to a commute, and takes less from the wallet. SEPTA, in response to the recent spike in demand for service has implemented its highest service increase in its history. As part of the service increase, 100 Diesel/Electric Hybrid buses will be brought into use. These new buses will carry more passengers, and emit less CO2.

Since this spring, when the weather warmed up, biking has seen a surge of interest. For most people, taking a bike, rather than a car is a practical option. Most car trips occur within five miles of the home, perfect distance to ride a bike. Using a bike to run small errands, or commute to work will reduce your effect on the environment, and definitely reduce your waistline.

For many, riding a bike to work may not make sense, but carpooling certainly does. Carpooling, even one day each week, will lower commute costs as much as 20%. Carpooling gets you to work less stressed out, and can help build a social connection with co-workers. Many companies have carpooling programs to assist co-workers in finding who is interested.

These immediate steps will only help to reduce the need for fossil fuels; ultimately the goal is to eliminate the need for fossil fuels. This will be achieved through technological innovations that allow a vehicle to be powered with electricity, or hydrogen, and release no CO2 emissions. Although this technology is being utilized on a small scale, it could be years before widespread usage is seen. In the mean time, our role as citizens is to use our fossil fuels more efficiently.

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Bike Pottstown program

BIKE POTTSTOWN PROGRAM HITS A MILESTONE!

Bike Pottstown, the Borough of Pottstown’s free community bike share program which began this past June, has already checked out its one-hundredth bike. Bike Pottstown is the Philadelphia region’s first free community bike share program.

Program participants, mostly from the Pottstown area, have made great use of this free asset. In response to the initial success of the program, Bike Pottstown is pleased to announce that it will continue to offer bikes to the public through the entire fall season. We anticipate that with cooler temperatures, more people will come out to ride.

Checking out a bike is very easy: the bikes are located at Tri-County Bicycles, 248 E. High St., in the heart of Pottstown’s downtown district. There is no charge to check out a bike, all you need is a valid form of photo I.D. Tri-County Bicycles is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The bikes must be returned by the end of the day they are checked out. Each bike comes equipped with a lock and a basket on the front. Helmets are offered at no cost, and are strongly recommended.

Bike Pottstown was made possible through a grant by the Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation and with contributions from Blast From the Past Street Rods, Exelon Limerick Generating Plant and the Pottstown Police Officer’s Association. It has also made headlines this past week on Fox 29 News at 5 - reporter Gerald Kolpan did a story on it for the Tuesday evening's broadcast.

Be sure to come out this fall and take a bike for a ride. Pottstown has great biking amenities, including bike lanes on High Street right through the heart of the downtown, and the Schuylkill River Trail, which is accessed via Riverfront Park off College Drive.

For more information about the program, visit http://www.bikepottstown.org./ There is no better way to enjoy a late summer day than on a free bike!

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What is Contraflow?

On August 7, 2008, GVF Transporation attened a conference, hosted by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals that discussed the issue of traffic management during evacuations. The key note speaker was Dr. Brian Wolshon, an associate professor at Louisiana State University, who was part of the team that developed the New Orleans mass evacuation plan that was employed during Hurricane Katrina. Many of the emergency management organizations within Chester and Montgomery Counties attended the conference as part of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force. Dr. Wolshon was quick to praise the task force for their creation of ReadyNotifyPA, an alert system that immediately notifies citizens in Southeastern PA of emergencies or disasters.

The traffic congestion that results from evacuations, and finding ways to mitigate that congestion, was the main focus of the conference. One of the more effective ways to mitigate the congestion during an evacuation is by using contra flow lanes, or lanes that flow in the opposite direction during an evacuation. Dr. Wolshon explained how this concept was utilized when creating the New Orleans evacuation plan. Contra flow lanes can be highly successful in evacuations, however, they are not applicable to every situation and they require coordinated participation from emergency management crews. Without such participation from these teams, contra flow lanes can become the same bottlenecks and traffic jams that they seek to eliminate. From a planning perspective, contra flow lanes must be marked out in advance, and areas of highway must be chosen that meet contra flow standards. A good example of contra flow lanes being used without proper planning or participation occurred during the evacuation of Houston prior to Hurricane Rita in 2005, when a 16-lane highway turned into a parking lot. Regardless of whether or not contra flow is used, coordination among emergency management organizations is crucial during a mass evacuation. Even just 10 minutes of traffic congestion during an evacuation can take 40 minutes to clear out.

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I-80 Tolling Request Under Review

I-80 Tolling Request Under Review

The Federal Highway Administration said Friday it will take two months or more to reply to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s resubmitted application to toll Interstate 80 across the state.

Federal Highways, as the U.S. Department of Transportation agency is known, spent six weeks reviewing the turnpike commission’s initial application last year before replying in a December memo that it needed more information to decide whether to permit tolling.

The commission returned the ball to Federal Highways’ court two weeks ago when it submitted a highly detailed application asserting it would use toll revenues to invest $2.5 billion in the next decade on the 311-mile I-80, four times the current rate of capital spending on the highway.
The projects the commission would get to in the first three years include two I-80 interchanges in Marion Township: one with Jacksonville Road and the other with Interstate 99. Those two projects will cost more than $170 million and have been dropped from long-term plans because there’s no money from PennDOT in sight.

The commission’s plans, rolled out in a statewide online news conference last week, include installing an open-road tolling system on I-80 in which vehicles
don’t have to slow down or stop to pay tolls at nine tolling gantries, or one every 35 miles or so.

Motorists instead would pay through an E-ZPass transponder system or by mail after high-resolution overhead cameras snap a photo of their license plate and trace billing addresses through information from state transportation departments.

The commission identified 20 possible locations on Wednesday, and said Friday it would narrow the list to nine “preferred” locations this fall but is otherwise waiting for Federal Highways to approve or reject the resubmitted application or ask for still more information. “It’s a fluid process, and we have no expectations about the outcome,” commission spokesman Carl DeFebo said Friday.

Federal Highways spokeswoman Nancy Singer said Friday the administration has formed a team of experts to review Pennsylvania’s application to toll I-80. The review team includes Federal Highway officials from Pennsylvania; the Office of Program Administration, which oversees the interstate reconstruction and rehabilitation toll pilot program; the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program office; and the chief counsel. U.S. DOT Secretary Mary Peters will make the final decision.

The two possible toll locations in Centre County would amount to east and west gateways. One possible location lies between I-80’s Lamar and Bellefonte interchanges and the other between I-80’s Kylertown- Philipsburg and Snow Shoe interchanges.

Because car drivers with E-ZPass accounts would pass free through the first toll of their trip, commission project manager Barry Schoch said, commuters to the State College area from Lock Haven and DuBois probably would not pay a toll.

The commission has already sent an addendum to Federal Highways on its resubmitted application. The addendum summarizes comments from local transportation planners on the possible toll locations.

Planners for the Centre County Metropolitan Planning Organization raised concerns in a closed meeting with Schoch last month that tolls would divert traffic from I-80 to state Route 64, an old two-lane road that parallels the interstate east of State College.

The commission is also awaiting a report from GSP Consulting Corp., of Pittsburgh, on the projected economic impact of tolling I-80. The commission hired the economic development consulting firm to do the study after leading toll opponents, including U.S. Rep. John Peterson, RPleasantville, argued that tolls would devastate the economy along the I-80 corridor.
DeFebo said GSP is in the process of gathering information from businesses along the corridor.
At least one local planning organization — the Lewisburgbased SEDA-COG, the Susquehanna Economic Development Authority–Council of Governments — has discussed the possibility of local officials commissioning an economic impact study of their own.

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Residents of Western 'burbs feel need for better transit

Some commuters who live along the Route 422 bypass know the stretch of road by another name -- the 422 parking lot. With few options for public transit in this area and large commuter population, SEPTA has been looking into providing transit to this region. Read the full article here.

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