West Scranton welcome: Neighborhood gets gateway streetscape improvement

SCRANTON - The neighborhood of West Scranton will soon have a welcoming "gateway" along North Main Avenue near the McDade Expressway.

A streetscape project underway in recent weeks has work taking place in a 500-foot-long stretch of North Main Avenue, between Euclid Avenue and West Gibson Street.

The project involves installation of new sidewalks and curbs, period lighting, a decorative stone retaining wall, the planting of trees, traffic control, pavement restoration and related work, Scranton City Council President Tom Schuster said during Tuesday's council meeting.

A city goal for years, a West Scranton gateway in this residential area aims to create a more welcoming, southbound entrance along North Main Avenue.

This stretch of road often has heavy flows of traffic heading up and down the hill on North Main Avenue, which intersects with Euclid Avenue and Farr and West Gibson streets.

At the bottom of the hill, at Euclid Avenue, trucks often have their tops peeled off when striking the underside of a railroad bridge over North Main Avenue that has a clearance of 12 feet, 8 inches.

Just beyond the rail bridge, the busy McDade Expressway also goes over North Main Avenue and has exit and entrance ramps here.

When completed, the West Scranton project should serve as a gateway model for the city to replicate in other neighborhoods and key locations elsewhere in the city, Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti said Wednesday during the annual State of the City address held at the University of Scranton.

"North Main Avenue at Euclid (avenue) in West Side is a project we've been working on for some time. It's going to be a gateway to West Side," Cognetti told an audience of over 100 people. In "future planning, there's a lot more of those types of gateways that we want to do … we've got to figure out how to get those funded. But we're putting the playbook in place now that we can continue to follow as funding becomes available."

At the council meeting Tuesday night, Schuster also raised a question and concern about Euclid Avenue temporarily being made one-way up its hill from North Main Avenue, and the impact of that one-way designation on Emiliani Trucking Inc. at the far end of Dorothy Street.

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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 8:12 PM.