Clarksville Rd Study

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Committee has selected Clarksville Rd. for a traffic calming study. I attended the kick-off meeting on March 15th as an invited participant

• Who was there: four planners from the DVRPC, Jim Parvesse, Pat Ward, Chief Pica and one of his officers, George Fallat and Greg Sandusky and Matt Lawson from the County, someone representing the BRT, someone from NJ Transit, the person in charge of transportation for WW-P Schools.
• What is being done: The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission has selected Clarksville Rd. for one of two Traffic Calming Studies for 2007 (they do one in NJ and one in PA) from a list of potential candidates (which are nominated by the 9 counties in the DVRPC's region). They chose the Clarksville Rd. corridor for a number of reasons- The county has had Clarksville Rd on its list for the last two years. They chose it because it's vicinity to the train station, the fact that there are two schools located on the corridor, and the recent articles relating to the pedestrian accident (which they didn't seem to know a lot about).
• The original limit of the study was Clarksville Rd from Rt 571 up to but not including the bridge over the NE corridor train tracks. We convinced them right away to increase the limits of the study to include the bridge and up to the entrances of the JCC and the Axelrod Apt complex. The output from this study will a Traffic Calming Study Report, which should be completed by the end of summer, including existing conditions and major deficiencies of the corridor, recommendations for the corridor and recommendations for funding ( e.g., Safe Routes to School- which the DVPRC administers)
• We discussed the existing conditions. We spent a lot of time on the future Avalon Watch improvements and the reasons for these improvements. I asked that the county consider leaving room for bikelanes when they make their road improvements.
  We also spent a lot of time on the bridge over the NE corridor tracks (as we were convincing them to increase the study area). The bridge is a clear pinch point for pedestrian and bicylilsts. Turns out the bridge is not an orpahn bridge but is owned by the county and the county has no plans to replace it. The county is open to the idea of cantilevering a bike-ped addition. A "parallel structure" would be possible.
• I argued strongly for bikelanes to be included on the entire length of Clarksville Rd. The DVRPC seems entirely in support of bikelanes. We also spent a lot of time on pedestrian conditions around high school south (a major focus of mine). We talked about pedestrian improvements to the Penn Lyle and Clarksville intersection as well as the Clarksville and Rt 571 intersection, as well as general traffic calming along the road.
• I asked about widening Clarksville Rd between Everett and Everett Drives to allow for bikelanes. The county and township are interestingly waiting for a developer to come along and develop the land across from the firehouse and pay for the widening. It's not cheap apparently.
• Next steps- the DVRPC will be gathering data and doing field studies. and then there will be another meeting. I told them about the WWBPA and what we've been trying to do. I gave them our web site and will send them information re our role in Avalon Watch, etc. I invited them to our next meeting. They recommended that we write a position paper on what we'd like to see on Clarksville Rd. They handed out a recent publication of theirs called "taming Traffic" about recent contect-sensitive solutions in the DVRPC region. Let me know if you're interested in seeing it. Let me know your thoughts about what you'd like to see on Clarksville Rd. We have a great chance to improve this important road in our town.

Respectfully, Ken