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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

How Will Bethlehem Township Pay For $3.9 MM Brodhead Road Re-Paving?

Brodhead Rd
Bethlehem Township fared very poorly on grants from the state's Commonwealth Financing Agency this year. It was passed over on grant requests for its Athletic Center's controversial $250,000 bathroom and storage center. It was denied funding for four police cruisers, though several other communities were approved. Funding for a parks master plan and even stormwater planning were ignored. But the wound that cut deepest was being passed over on a proposal to repave the long-neglected Brodhead Road, which has been transformed by heavy tractor trailer traffic into something more akin to a washboard than a township road.

Though Township engineers have have completed design work for this $3.9 million project, Township Commissioners will have to decide how to pay for it.

Township Manager Melissa Shafer has reported that she's been given good news and bad news by State Senator Lisa Boscola's office. The good news. The Commonwealth Financing Agency really wanted to approve her grant request, but a clerical error on the state level led to an inadvertent snub. The bad news. The amount approved was just the grant amount was for $200,000, far short of the $3.9 million project and the $2.7 million request.

At the August 18 meeting, Shafer will ask Commissioners whether she should file another grant application or dive into a $10 million line of credit to pay for this work.

In the meantime, yet another construction season is slipping away.

Broadhead Road, located between Route 191 and 512, is a two-lane commercial artery roughly parallel to U.S. Route 22.
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15 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 5:38 AM

    "Clerical error", these grants were so poorly written they didn't meet the minimum standard for review.
    The operation in the Twp. is a zoo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 6:07 AM

    Even in Allentown the last parks director was fired for a performance like this.
    These are not highly competitive grants,
    Somebody (s) dropped the ball,

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 6:23 AM

    Has anyone ever been fired in the township? Some have gone to jail, that we know!

    Whoever committed the clerical error, needs to be fired as I'm sure it wasn't the first time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 7:09 AM

    Are you sure you have the right section of Broadhead Road? Isn't part of that also Lower Nazareth Township. Also.....the thousands of dollars generated by taxes on the Commercial property in the Industrial park just isn't enough to pay for maintenance and upkeep of the roads. The heavy trucks that use that road actually destroy it and also that section of route 22 and route 191. That intersection needs to be completely redone. It is like a washboard when you drive over it. It is becoming very dangerous. The road actually steers your car right and left and an unsuspecting driver could easily lose control of their car. Also, Bethlehem Township gets little of the monies generated by taxes by the Industrial park because most of it is not in their Township.
    Tsk tsk tsk, such a vey.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 7:22 AM

    council and the administration are both laughable. Vote Trump

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 7:27 AM

    More bad government in the township. Nobody is responsible for nothing in Bethlehem Township. Sounds like county government and the clowns who run that circus show. Bring three stooges construction in they'll fix it cheap!

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 9:05 AM

    @7:09,
    None of Brodhead Rd. is in Lower Nazareth. The Township line is north of Brodhead.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 9:12 AM

    @7:09,
    A great deal of the industrial park is in BT. It stretches west to Township Line Rd., south to the vicinity of 22, and includes the LV Post Office. Get a map that shows political boundaries and educate yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 9:41 AM

    The industrial park should have another access from 22 directly into the complex. The 191 and 512 would be rid of all the truck traffic

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bernie O'HareJuly 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM

    As previous readers have noted, none of Brodhead Road is in Lower Nazareth. The stretch between 191 and 512 lies in two townships, Hanover and Bethlehem Tp. I thought that Hanover's stretch ends at Township Line Road, but it might be a little more or less. The portion of roadway in Hanover Tp is very well maintained. The portion in Bethlehem Tp is not. The intersections at 512 and 191 are both pretty bad, thanks to tractor trailers, and those are under state control.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bernie O'HareJuly 19, 2016 at 11:04 AM

    "Whoever committed the clerical error, needs to be fired as I'm sure it wasn't the first time. "

    The clerical error occurred at the state, not township, level.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Bernie O'HareJuly 19, 2016 at 11:08 AM

    "these grants were so poorly written they didn't meet the minimum standard for review."

    Ms. Shafer asked the state and was told there was nothing wrong with her applications. Just not enough money. My view is that politics was at play bc other townships were approved for virtually identical requests.

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 1:34 PM

    The main reason the roads in the Hanover section of Brodhead is that much of the warehousing is in the stretch between 191 and Township Line Rd. The western stretch has a lot of flex space (strip mall-like offices), and not much warehousing.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousJuly 19, 2016 at 1:35 PM

    ^Roads are in better shape

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousJuly 20, 2016 at 9:12 AM

    Take the $200,000 grant and repave 1,000 feet of it, anything is an improvement, that road is a colossal piece of crap.

    ReplyDelete

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