Traffic Flow

Putting in left-turn lanes, encouraging businesses to share driveways and concentrating affordable housing near public transportation - these were among several suggestions offered this week to ease traffic congestion on Route 611 in Doylestown Township. Sixteen people attended a Monday meeting of the township Board of Supervisors at which the topic was discussed. "It's a very intense area of growth that needs a bit of special attention if we're to keep the rural atmosphere of the township," Supervisor Joe Conti Jr. said.

The Pennsbury supervisors have come up with a traffic-flow plan for a small retail and office complex on Pond's Edge Drive. At a meeting Monday, the board ordered the excavation of a portion of the drive's median strip to allow the paving of a crossover allowing access to the rear of Briarcliffe Marketing, the yet-unfinished office and retail headquarters of a locally owned company that sells handmade American craft items. Briarcliffe owner Joan Fyk of Kennett Township said trucks need access to the rear entrance so they can enter the warehouse without crossing the front parking lot. In a 2-0 vote, with one member abstaining, the board agreed that the township road crew should remove four trees from the median strip and excavate the median at the crossover point.

The Caln Township Planning Commission has recommended that an application to build a Friendly's restaurant on Route 30 be approved by the Board of Commissioners. The commissioners will hold a hearing Nov. 11 to consider the application. The application by Friendly Ice Cream Corp. of Lancaster was recommended by the Planning Commission during its meeting on Tuesday. Commission members approved the plan to build the restaurant, on Route 30 between Wawa and the D'Lites restaurant, but they said Friendly's must make adjustments to prevent traffic problems that might be caused by cars turning left onto Route 30 from the restaurant.

Great Valley Corporate Center employers have asked East Whiteland Township to alter some local traffic regulations to improve traffic flow around the corporate center. At a work session before the township Board of Supervisors' meeting Monday, John DeMare, manager of employee relations at General Electric Co. in the corporate center, gave the supervisors a list of six recommendations formulated in meetings with about 20 corporate center employers. The supervisors scheduled a meeting for tonight with township residents to discuss the proposals.

In a move aimed at helping revitalization in Norristown, the Montgomery County commissioners yesterday approved a contract for a consultant company that will study traffic along two of the borough's busiest streets. McMahon Associates Inc. will be paid $50,000 to devise a plan that would improve traffic flow on Lafayette and Main Streets. Those two streets, officials have said, are key pieces if the borough wants to get more visitors and businesses. Calling it a "puzzlement" that Norristown has not had the same economic windfall as neighboring King of Prussia, Commissioner Jim Matthews said the road study was an important step on the way to revitalization.

A redecking project that will limit traffic on the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge to one lane in each direction for the next two years begins at 9 a.m. Friday. The $23 million project will give the bridge its first new deck since it was built in 1929. The new deck is expected to last 25 to 30 years. Work on the bridge, which is 38 feet wide and 3,700 feet long, will start on the downstream side, then move to the middle, and finish with the upstream side. Burlington County Bridge Commission officials said they expected to lose less than 10 percent of their customers during the project.

Despite predictions of possible massive tieups, there were "no problems" today during morning crunch time of Day Two of the final phase of the Schuylkill Expressway reconstruction project, a PennDOT spokeswoman said. PennDOT observers monitoring the traffic flow from cars in the middle of potential trouble spots said, "It really ran quite well. " Yesterday, about half the normal number of drivers took the expressway during the rush hours, and delays through the construction zone ranged from 10 to 30 minutes during the morning and 10 to 15 minutes at the evening peak, said PennDOT spokesperson Lois Morasco.

Traveling on Street Road between Interstate 95 and Route 1 in Bensalem is no ride in the country. There are traffic signals galore. Eleven of them on the three-mile stretch. There is always traffic. At least 38,000 vehicles per day. There is the highway surface. Concrete that is crumbling fast. You get the picture: Red light. Bump. Green light. Bump. Red light . . . Wouldn't it be nice if all of the signals were synchronized, if the road were a smooth blacktop, if travel time through the township were cut in half?

A recently completed study shows that traffic generated by the proposed Twin Hills of Cedar Springs development probably would be far greater than the developer, S.G. Souder Builders Inc., has suggested. The study, conducted for the West Pikeland Planning Commission and released at a meeting Wednesday, showed that the 189-acre development on Bryers and Eagle Farms Roads would cause traffic problems on Bryers Road and on Routes 113 and 401. A similar study conducted in June for the developer by Robert Rodgers, a partner in Orth-Rodgers Associates of Philadelphia, concluded that the project would improve traffic flow.

The Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved an expansion plan for the Valley Forge Shopping Center. Two weeks ago, board members had said they did not like the parking and traffic proposals in the plan. Board Chairman Edward J. Wilkes said that traffic was already heavy at the center and that there had been problems with illegal parking. The approval Thursday night came with 10 conditions that the developer agreed to. They require close monitoring of parking and the traffic flow at the center.

To take the "stop" out of stop-and-go traffic, Philadelphia is spending about $90 million over three years to upgrade traffic signals and synchronize lights at more than 600 intersections along 21 major corridors in the city. The first streets to get the upgrades are Oregon Avenue, 29th Street, Verree Road, Belmont Avenue, Bustleton Avenue, Chestnut Street, Walnut Street, and Woodland Avenue, said Stephen Buckley, deputy commissioner for transportation at the Streets Department.

To pass, to weave, perchance to be trapped behind a 16-wheeler. That's the Hamletlike quandary facing drivers on New Jersey's crowded highways. And now there could be a new rub: a stiffer fine for those who linger in the left lane. A bill to increase fines for "failure to keep right" passed the state Senate Transportation Committee last week. The measure, which State Sen. Donald Norcross (D., Camden) has sponsored to deter road rage, would increase the maximum fine to $300 from the current $200, and the minimum fine to $100 from the current $50. New Jersey already has one of the nation's toughest "keep-right" laws.

DEAR ABBY: There is an ongoing issue between my husband and me. It's his disregard for my personal safety. Our large city is known for its heavy, fast traffic and impatient drivers. "Jon" is a good driver. He likes to drive in the left (passing) lane on the highway or tollway, usually about five miles above the posted speed limit. This is considered too slow for many drivers, who become impatient and aggressive having to be behind us in the fast lane. If they start to pass us on the right, he will speed up so they can't get ahead of him. He says he's "teaching them a lesson.

A ramp in Bellmawr leading to Route 42 has been reopened following an accident that left a tractor trailer overturned. The truck that overturned at the Creek Road on-ramp was uprighted at 7:45 a.m. and traffic flow has since returned. The incident at the Creek Road on-ramp occurred about 5:30 a.m. The area around the crash is normally heavy as cars flow in and out of Routes 55, I-295 and 42. The crash resulted in a backup along some of the major arteries leading to those roads, including the Black Horse Pike as it approaches I-295.

A protest in Center City on Saturday and bridge work on the Pennsylvania Turnpike early Sunday will affect traffic flow this weekend. Philadelphia Police said that starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, streets around Louis Kahn Park at 11th and Pine Streets will be closed for the set up of the SlutWalk March and Rally. The march is set to begin at 11:20 a.m. and will make its way to City Hall and Dilworth Plaza. "There will be officers assigned to this event, but traffic in the area could be heavy at times," the department said in a statement.

AS PART of the "One Great Idea" series carried by both the Daily News and the Morning Yawn , Zahav chef/owner Michael Solomonov last week suggested that the city's traffic lights be synchronized. Not quite equal to Copernicus' revolutionary idea that the earth orbits the sun, but solid. Synchronized lights speed traffic, reduce fuel and pollution. So why are we out of synch? Follow the bouncing ball as Steve Buckley, deputy commissioner for transportation in the Streets Department, synchronizes his answers to the questions of Your Favorite Columnist.

CAPE MAY - Voters have rejected proposals to add parking meters and spaces in Cape May. In a 495-255 vote Wednesday, residents turned down a plan that would have raised about $75,000 annually by adding 80 meters on the east side of the resort. A second proposal, to gain metered spaces by replacing parallel parking on the beachfront with back-in, angled parking, was defeated, 546-200. The results did not include provisional ballots, but the clerk said there were not enough of those to change the outcome.

A New Jersey icon rumored to be on its way to extinction has instead taken an evolutionary turn. Like a certain newspaper columnist, the traffic circle refuses to go away. And it, too, has a chic new incarnation. (More about that in a moment). It's true that the legendary Collingswood, Berlin, and Ellisburg are history - the same fate awaiting the Routes 70/73 mashup, otherwise known as the Marlton Circle. Since the mid-1990s, 20 New Jersey traffic circles, rendered obsolete by ever-rising amounts of traffic, have been eliminated via cut-throughs, flyovers, signalization (love the lingo)

If you've craved pizza while near Bryn Mawr Hospital, chances are you've pulled up to Pacilio's Pizza & Beer on Glenbrook Avenue, parked, and picked up your pie. But easy access to Joe Byrnes' shop is going the way of the green Coca-Cola bottle, as Bryn Mawr's "five points" intersection is poised for a makeover that will route patrons around his business. The changes - needed to improve traffic flow at the dangerous confluence of County Line Road and Bryn Mawr Avenue- will shut off street access to his shop, turning the tap on his business.

As cars trucks and buses rumbled around City Hall yesterday, officials announced an aggressive ticketing and towing campaign against motorists who double park, sneak a stay in a loading zone, or block intersections downtown. Those habits, they said, congest traffic and jeopardize other motorists - and, starting Monday in Center City, more and more violators will be cited. Random interviews with drivers yielded grousing about both the plan and clogged driving conditions. "I think they already ticket too much," said Wayne Terry, 29, of Southwest Philadelphia, who works at Family Court in Center City and pays to park in a garage "to avoid the hassle.