BETHLEHEM, Pa. — If it feels like there’s more traffic on the roads these days, that’s because there is.
Lots more.
This week our project The Road Ahead kicks into overdrive with a series of stories focused on traffic, transportation issues, and why we drive like we do – distracted, impaired, stressed-out and the like.
We’ve covered road projects and transportation in the Lehigh Valley regularly. But it’s been awhile since there’s been a comprehensive look at how we’ve gotten here, and the challenges ahead.
Some of what we’ve found and will be sharing over the next four days is eye-popping.
Consider:
- The busiest stretches of highway in the Lehigh Valley have gained 30, 40 and 50 percent more traffic in just the last 10 years.
- There are more than twice as many tractor-trailers on Route 22 near the Lehigh River bridge today than there were in 2014.
- The nearly $5 billion in funding identified for Lehigh Valley road projects over the next 25 years is about $2.5 billion short of needs.
- Drunken- or impaired-driving arrests are up 42% in Lehigh County in the last five years.
- Crashes caused by distracted driving in Pennsylvania have overtaken alcohol-related ones.
- Driver education classes in public schools have gone the way of the Edsel. Only five Lehigh Valley school districts offer them.
All of that is explored in detail in The Road Ahead, which will carry on past this week in different ways.
At 6 p.m. Thursday, April 3, we’re hosting a community conversation at the Univest Public Media Center that will welcome a live studio audience and be streamed and broadcast on PBS39. You can register to join the audience here.
Reporter Tom Shortell is answering reader questions and flexing his knowledge of local transit with a weekly newsletter, The Road Scholar. You can sign up for the newsletter here and check out some of his prior prose here.
Think you’ve mastered the rules of the road? Take the driver’s quiz we developed with help from the state Department of Transportation and an Allentown driver’s ed teacher. Fair warning: The average score of the hundreds who have taken it is 52%. Ouch.
Of course all of this is intended to contribute to the mission LehighValleyNews.com established three years ago – to provide freely accessible, essential reporting in the Lehigh Valley, about the Lehigh Valley.
Here’s what’s in store over the next four days:
MONDAY | 10 years of population and warehouse growth crowd the roads
TUESDAY | Hell on the highway: Stress, distractions, bad behavior are a perilous mix
WEDNESDAY | Rise in DUIs: Impaired driving among top public safety threats
THURSDAY | Rules of the road: Driver education isn’t what it used to be
Hop aboard and join us for the ride.
