Cheltenham Township held an informational meeting about PennDOT’s proposal for the Church and Greenwood Road intersection to receive comments from the public. It received plenty.

PennDOT wants to redesign the intersection to ease what they perceive as a bottleneck. The new design will provide for left-turn lanes and add traffic islands to the mix and the removal of seventeen mature trees.

The township has issued a 23-page summary of the meeting with 94 comments and their responses.

PennDOT says that they had fourteen alternatives to consider, from doing nothing to building a roundabout. In the end, the choice made moving forward is a design that “Minimize Impacts to Reconstructionist Rabbinical College”. This will widen the intersection to allow for turning lanes.

Comments lamented the loss of trees, pointed out PennDOT’s lack of priority for pedestrian access, and the plan’s potential to actually make traffic worse.

The negative comments overwhelmingly outnumbered the positive. Read for yourself at this link.