Another round of traffic counts planned for State College Area Connector Project study area
Additional traffic counts are planned for areas of the State College Area Connector Project study.
Beginning next week, traffic counts will be conducted along the U.S. Route 322 between Boalsburg and Potters Mills, State Route 45 between Old Fort and Boalsburg, and at “key intersections” along both of the roadways in the study area, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said in a release.
Crews will set up equipment to assist in counting and documenting traffic along the roadways and intersections on April 4. Traffic counts will occur “intermittently” through April 14, according to the release.
The first round of traffic counts happened in early December.
Equipment used for the traffic counts include small cameras temporarily attached to the utility or traffic signal poles, the release states, and it will not impact traffic.
Staff may be in the field to support some traffic count activity, depending on the location, PennDOT wrote in the release.
The goal of the SCAC project is to improve a 13-mile stretch of U.S. Route 322 from the Seven Mountains to State College. The highway handles about 15,000 vehicles daily and is expected to see a 27% increase in annual average daily traffic by 2050, while daily truck volume is expected to increase by 31%.
Previously, there were nine possible routes that the state Department of Transportation was exploring through its planning and environmental linkage study. A report released by PennDOT in September ruled out two-thirds of the potential options and identified three routes that should move forward for further study.
All three potential alignments — identified by PennDOT as U.S. 322-1S, U.S. 322-1OEX and U.S. 322-5 — would bring the project through the U.S. Route 322 corridor at a cost that ranges from $432 million to $517 million. Main line construction would span about eight miles.
The controversial project has drawn pushback from many home and business owners in the area, who say they could lose their livelihood due to the project. Some locally elected officials have also been outspoken about it. The project has been on the drawing board for nearly two decades, but was abandoned in 2004 when funding was pulled by the federal government. Then-Gov. Tom Wolf announced during a 2019 press conference that funding would come from the state.
