The Lehigh Valley community is currently wrestling with further warehouse development in Upper Saucon Township along Route 309, and it’s hard to not connect their concerns with ours in Maidencreek.

Three warehouses that will be built off Route 309 will add traffic to a “high-crash corridor,” according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.

The commission recommends that if developer Kay Builder’s proposal for Upper Saucon Township winds up employing more than 800 people, additional traffic studies should be carried out.

The proposal up there involves three buildings comprising 1.77 million square feet, which isn’t much below the nearly million-square-foot proposal we are fighting in Maidencreek.

Furthermore, look at the truck trip data in their area:

The estimated number of trips generated by the three big-box buildings is 4,042 per day, with 1,056 of them made by trucks. About a quarter of those trucks may head south on Route 309, while most of the rest will make their way to Route 378.

Once the Commerce Center has been built and a reconstruction of the Route 309/Center Valley interchange is done, “the crash rate should be monitored on a continual basis,” according to the LVPC staff report read by Brian Hite, transportation planner.

The traffic data by Chris Williams / McMahon Associates (page 6 of this PDF) projects 214 truck trips would be added to our roads as a result of the proposed warehouse. And yet the gross floor area/square footage isn’t dissimilar from the projects in Upper Saucon Township.

The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is also recommending additional traffic studies be carried out and “long-term monitoring of accident rates” on Route 309, which is already deemed a “high crash corridor” — defined as areas with “Commercial Motor Vehicles (CMV) crashes resulting in a death (K), serious injury (A), or known injury (B)” — once the proposed development is finished.

The out-of-town developers looking to add to our area? They’ve already said on the record that they’re not going to do anything more than the bare minimum. (Read our recap of the Jan. 25 meeting here.)

Could Rt. 222 become a “high crash corridor” over time with the million-square-foot addition to our community too? Make it make sense, because right now, it doesn’t.

Join our FB group and sign our petition. Be heard in this battle.