The City of Allentown is increasing bike lanes for the safety of its members.
.png)
According to Yeimy Delgado, the traffic superintendent for the Bureau of Traffic Planning and Control in the city, on Tuesday, the city does have some bike and shared-use lanes, but they are not connected, "they are in different areas throughout the city." "We want to have a strategy that we can look at and strive toward, or at least that connectedness for bike users around the city."
"Safe, accessible, and welcoming transportation choices for everyone is our goal," stated WalkWorks Program coordinator Samantha Pearson in a press release at the time of the announcement. "WalkWorks increases possibilities for regular physical activity and lowers the risk of traffic-related injuries and deaths, which benefits communities by improving public health."
We are working hard to improve our environment so that it is more pro-access, pro-activity, and pro-health. Healthy individuals, resilient communities, safer streets and highways, and more robust local economies can all result from our partnership. The State Department of Health, thehttps://padowntown.org/, and the State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources are among the state agencies that support the award, even though it is facilitated through the WalkWorks program.
The monies came from the state DCNR's Environmental Stewardship Fund as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant program. After the funds are given out, the recipients—like Allentown—have to upgrade the bicycling and walking pathways by developing an Active Transportation Plan. Local leaders should collaborate with “transportation and community planners to collect data, assess present conditions and goals and include public input,” according to state officials, in order to achieve this.
According to Cindy Adams Dunn, secretary of the state DCNR, "improving access to trails and creating safer chances to spend time outside is vital in connecting people to nature." "We know that being outside improves a person's physical and mental health, and the influence that trails have on local tourism throughout the commonwealth is also helping local economies."
Although Allentown has only recently gotten funding, it has already received at least two additional grants this year. The city has received an influx of state and federal cash in recent months to expand and upgrade its pathways and provide a safer environment for cyclists and pedestrians.
The city received $500,000 for the replacement of traffic lights at three junctions along 17th Street and the extension of the MLK Trail off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from the Multimodal Transportation Fund, or MTF, of the Commonwealth Financing Authority in late March. When finished, it will link Fountain Park with Lehigh Parkway.
The following month, the city and local lawmakers unveiled the Safe Streets for All initiative. With funding from a $312,000 grant from the U.S. Transportation Department, a steering committee will assess the safety of the streets and create a "roadmap for safety improvements" and "holistic approach."
After a year of fatalities on city roadways, the project was revealed. Based on city records, there were over 4,000 reported crashes in 2023, of which 136 involved pedestrians. Twelve pedestrians were critically hurt, and five pedestrians lost their lives. To identify issue locations, residents can fill out an online survey.
According to Delgado, the Safe Streets for All project and the trail extension are unrelated to the WalkWorks program. While the latter has an overall safety purpose, the former has a master plan for paths through the city. However, the information gathered and insights gained from both will assist in shaping the Active Transportation Plan. It is anticipated that some trail segments will be utilized to establish connections with our bicycle network. And connection is ultimately the aim, according to Delgado. This will be an addition to the Safe Streets for All program and more focused on bike utilization and connections across the city. "This is solely focused on helping us connect their bike infrastructure around the city, whereas that is looking at making roadways safer and more accessible to everyone overall."
Delgado stated, "We are going through it with an open mind to see which streets are the most open to including these types of bike infrastructures, whether they are shared lanes, bike lanes, or protected bike lanes. This is because we do not have that much going on in terms of bike lanes and bike facilities in general." "Check which city roads would be suitable for that.
Furthermore, creating a link between the east and west, as well as the north, is our overarching objective. As a result, for this strategy, we sort of investigate which roads, if any, would be most effective in achieving that objective.