We asked local candidates what they think about the State College Connector. Here’s what they said
As the state Department of Transportation moves forward with the next steps in the State College Area Connector project, which will ultimately help the agency narrow the alignments down to one, the controversial project continues to stir discussion in the community.
Candidates for Pennsylvania State House say it’s a concern they’ve heard from voters, as well. During last week’s virtual “Meet the Candidates” forum hosted by the Centre Daily Times, candidates were asked to explain their position on the project and what role the state government can play to provide a voice for the townships and communities who think this project will create unsafe conditions.
The Planning and Environmental Linkage study, which evaluates the safety, capacity, infrastructure and other topics in southern Centre County, has been submitted to the Federal Highway Administration for review. The study identified three potential routes, including U.S. 322 1-OEX, U.S. 322 1-S and U.S. 322-5. PennDOT held two public meetings last week with a short presentation of the project and the identified routes, and conducted a question/answer session.
The need for continued public input and transparency was highlighted by many of the candidates running to represent Centre County in Harrisburg when the topic was discussed during the forum. Justin Behrens, Republican candidate for state House District 82, touched on safety and protecting farms, but said having transparency throughout the process is the most important piece.
“The biggest piece is making sure that this road that we develop is safe, secure and that we protect the people that drive on that road. … The most important piece is that we have transparency, let the public talk. Don’t surprise them,” Behrens said. “Let’s talk among each other and discuss what’s the best answer to make this happen.”
For roughly the last three years, everything PennDOT has done has been based off of GIS mapping that is available through numerous partner agencies and aerial photos, Eric Murnyack, portfolio manager at PennDOT, told the CDT at last week’s meeting. Now that the project has been narrowed down to three alignments, PennDOT will begin conducting field investigations.
They’ll send letters to everyone who lives within the study area and explain that they could be on their property doing physical surveys, wetland mapping, looking for sinkholes, noting resources (such as water) and historic properties, he said.
According to the anticipated timeline provided for the preliminary engineering and environmental studies, that process will occur in the spring and summer of 2023.
“We’ve narrowed it down to three (alignments). So when we start these investigations, the goal now is to … narrow that down to one,” Murnyack said. “When we submit for our permit, we only want to submit for one alignment.”
The goal is to eliminate two alignments as soon as possible, he said. The whole National Environmental Policy Act process is anticipated to be wrapped up by spring 2025.
The SCAC project’s goal 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%.
Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, Republican candidate for state House District 171, said safe, quality roads have always been an important issue to him and for the county. He said as a former county coroner, he has seen the worst of what can happen. And, economically, U.S. Route 322 is responsible for transporting a lot of people and goods, he said, and in order to grow the economy, goods and products need to be transported.
“We’ve had multiple paths as far as all these three projects getting this corridor finalized, … we’re getting down to the last six, seven miles of it. It needs to be done from a safety perspective. Frankly, the longer we delay the costs keep going up,” Benninghoff said. “The ultimate goal is to have less impact on people as possible. We pay market price for any property we take and at the end of the day, we want to try to not impose any more on the environment than we have to or farmlands.”
By bringing the major construction project through the U.S. Route 322 corridor, it would potentially wipe out multigenerational farms, businesses and other properties. A proposed connector between state Route 45 and U.S. Route 322 has reignited concerns among those living in Potter and Harris townships.
Paul Takac, Democrat candidate for state House District 82, said something needs to be done, but the current three potential routes have “very significant impacts.”
“That is a very dangerous stretch of road between Boalsburg and Potters Mills. It’s a single lane, both directions, it’s very difficult for EMS and others to deal with. There’s sensitive homes and wetlands and everything along the way. I do believe that we need to do something about improving safety on that road,” Takac said. “But the three proposals that have been advanced so far, do have very significant impacts on not only farmland, but the homes and the wetlands and some of the environmental impacts along each of those three corridors.”
He urged PennDOT and the local community to stay involved in the conversation. PennDOT has a lot of information about the project available on its website, www.PennDOT.pa.gov/SCAC. During the public meetings, PennDOT officials said the meeting transcript and any other written comments received by Nov. 11 will be part of the meeting record.
The three proposed routes have an estimated price tag that ranges from $432 million to $517 million. Construction is slated to begin in 2028 and finish by 2033.
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. Gov. Tom Wolf announced during a 2019 press conference that funding would come from the state.
Rep. Scott Conklin, Democrat candidate for state House District 77, said the project is “long overdue.” When he was a county commissioner, he said there was a citizens advisory committee that was working on the routes for this project, but when the route was set to be unveiled, the project was pulled.
“It should have been done many years ago. It should never have been pulled. Where the original road where they were going to put it 20 years ago is not the same location where it’s going to be today,” Conklin said. “But I’m proud of the work myself and my other colleagues have done over the years with preserving as much farmland as we can and with PennDOT moving forward, again, let’s go back to what’s been talked about, let’s put the citizens involved. And let’s just not do an unveiling, but show them the routes more in depth.”
Robert Zeigler, Democrat candidate for state House District 171, acknowledged that in order to make progress and set it up for future success, some changes are needed.
“It’s already been set in motion and part of it’s already been built, and we’re kind of stuck with that. So now … how do we make forward progress to make it effective, with the least amount of impact to set up for future generations, so we don’t need to make another future impact on the local community? So my stance is, that the people decide what the best option is, and we go with it, then we’ve done the best of our abilities with that decision,” Zeigler said.
