Hollo Road - Speed Limit Confusion

Can someone please explain to me why the North/East bound direction of Hollo Road has a posted speed limit of 25 MPH, but the South/West bound direction has a posted speed limit of 35? It's a bit confusing, don't you think?

For the life of me I can't imagine why you would want a 25 MPH speed limit on that road (there's one of those portable "your speed is" displays there - tonight it told me that I was doing 40). Anyway - 25 MPH is a little slow. 35 seems more reasonable - I guess I need to be going the other way for that. I'll post some photos here tomorrow.

ProLogis Parkway is OPEN!

I came home from a long day at work tonight at 9:15. Of course, I headed down the old Hollo Road, only to discover that the barricades have been REMOVED and the Hollo Road/Prologis Parkway intersection is now open.

Tomorrow I'm playing the lotto.

Hollo Road - The Saga Continues

** NOTICE ** Although there already is a disclaimer in the header at the top of this blog page, I need to expressly restate that fact. I want noone to mis-interpret that this rant is any way endorsed by, or is any official position of, the Borough of Tatamy. This rant is mine and mine alone. Now on with the story . . .

This afternoon I thought I'd drop a note to Bob Anckaitis, Palmer Township Manager, as a follow-up to our correspondence last week concerning opening the intersection of Hollo Road and ProLogis Parkway, with the hope that I would receive good news. Boy was I wrong.

In a previous post, I learned that Timm Tenges and the folks in Lower Nazareth Township required some sort of reassurances from Palmer Township that Palmer would assume responsibility for some future improvements that were required to support the projected increase in traffic as a result of some of the new construction going on in our area (Chrin project, Majestic, etc.). Palmer submitted to Lower Nazareth's engineering group everything that they asked for. It now appears that Lower Nazareth's Township Manager Timm Tenges is STILL not satisfied. Lower Nazareth is now requesting (perhaps bullying?) Palmer to enter into an intermunicipal agreement. What a crock. It's now painfully obvious to me that Mr. Tenges, and the Chairman of the Lower Nazareth Board of Supervisors Alan Dilsaver along with the rest of the Board of Supervisors don't care about the safety of the folks who risk their lives every time they want to turn left onto 248 from Hollo Road. I can't imagine what kind of intermunicipal agreement is required. Furthermore, I can't imagine why they won't take down the barricades while all this nonsense is worked out. I'm convinced that none of them use this road. If they did, they would know what pain in the you know what it is to try to get out. Nothing will be done until someone gets severely injured - or worse yet, killed.

Mr. Tenges - if you're reading this I would like to remind you and the rest of the Lower Nazareth Supervisors that you are most likely using public funds to signalize what amounts to be a private, dead-end roadway. May I suggest that until whatever beef you have with Palmer Township is worked out, that you turn off the traffic light. It's not doing anyone any good. I had to sit there the other evening - and thought why? Nobody was coming down ProLogis Parkway, but for whatever reason, the light turned red. Ridiculous.

I encourage all of my readers to launch an email/letter writing campaign to the officials in Lower Nazareth (their contact info is below). Explain to them the difficulty that we have trying to get onto Route 248. Explain to them the fact that the recently relocated Majestic plant brought with it a slew of vehicles, that, because ProLogis Parkway and an easy link to Route 248/33 isn't usable, they wind up clogging our roads making their way back to the Slate Belt. Remind them that they're most likely using public money to operate a traffic signal to control a private dead end road. Remind them that we're just plain fed up with their nonsense. I've already done so, and provided a link to this blog post.

Timm Tenges: manager@lowernazareth.com
Alan V. Dilsaver, Chairman: adilsaver@lowernazareth.com
Eric E. Nagle, Vice Chairman: enagle@lowernazareth.com
Ricky T. Johnson: rjohnson@lowernazareth.com
Robert S. Kucsan: rkucsan@lowernazareth.com
Patrick J. Murphy: pmurphy@lowernazareth.com

Lower Nazareth Township
306 Butztown Road
Bethlehem, PA 18020
610.759.7434

I have also forwarded copies of this post to my fellow bloggers, Ross Nunamaker (Nazareth News Over Coffee) and Bernie O'Hare (Lehigh Valley Ramblings), along with Joe Owens from The Express-Times with the hope that they too will post something on their sites to bring more attention to this matter.

Let's hope that this whole mess can be resolved sometime soon.

Hollo Road Update

I've received numerous questions lately (and have been rather curious myself) that go something like this:
"hey, do you know when Hollo Road and ProLogis Parkway is going to open?", or "what's up with the barricade at the intersection of Hollo Road and ProLogis Parkway?"

So, I decided to write a note to both Timm Tenges (Lower Nazareth Township Manager) and Bob Anckaitis (Palmer Township Manager). This is where we stand to date:

It would appear that Lower Nazareth is requiring some reassurances from Palmer that Palmer will take care of some future improvements required to support the increased traffic flow that will come from the under construction Chrin Commerce Centre. Two or so weeks ago, Palmer's engineer submitted to Lower Nazareth all the documentation they requested, and it's currently being reviewed by the Lower Nazareth engineer. Once Lower Nazareth has completed their review and is satisfied that Palmer has addressed their concerns, Lower Nazareth will remove the barricades in place and open the road. I thank Bob Anckaitis from Palmer for this information, all I heard from Lower Nazareth was that "there were issues that needed to be worked out". I hope to have information to provide an update sometime next week. If/when I hear anything, you'll get it here.

Stay tuned . . .

Hollo Road - It's OPEN!

Once again you can now head down Hollo Road to 248 and points beyond. They opened the road sometime yesterday (9/5/08). You can't yet go through the industrial park (it's blocked off), but the link between 248 and Van Buren Road is F I N A L L Y reopened!

Hollo Road Update

Could it be possible that Hollo Road may be opening soon? I drove by there on my way to work this morning and the construction workers were moving the concrete barriers away from the new bridge over the Shoeneck (sp?) Creek and the "Road Closed" barricades at the corner of Hollo and Van Buren. Stay tuned . . .

** UPDATE ** 8/28/2008 10:10AM
I spoke with Palmer Township this morning. They indicated that their side still needs to be inspected, and they hope to have it open by the end of next week, or 9/5/2008. I'm still trying to get some information from Lower Nazareth, and will post something here if/when I hear anything.

Finally . . . A Hollo Road Update

Image courtesy of The Morning Call.

If, you're like me, you (used to) use Hollo Road as a short cut to Route 33 and points south. As you know Hollo Road has been closed for quite some time now, and finally, today in The Morning Call their "Road Warrior" Dan Hartzell has a good write-up in today's edition:

themorningcall.com
Some places, it's Old Man Winter who puts up roadblocks

Dan Hartzell

The Road Warrior

April 7, 2008
Q: How long are developers allowed to close a public road for what appears to be their own convenience? Hollo Road between Van Buren Road and Route 248 in Lower Nazareth and Palmer townships has been closed since July. It appears they completed upgrading the intersection at 248 last year, but haven't done anything at Hollo/Van Buren for many months. Why is a private company allowed to take control of a public road and close it for an extended time? Why does their convenience overrule that of the public? Kris Tavasz

Q: Can you tell me if Hollo Road between 248 and Van Buren Road in Palmer Township is going to be reopened? It has been closed for construction for many months and now it seems road has disappeared altogether. Since Hollo closed, Van Buren traffic has picked up tremendously, making especially the Northwood Road intersection hazardous. Pat Stanek

A:Problems regarding engineering approvals for a ''box culvert,'' a concrete structure that will carry the new, improved Hollo Road over Schoeneck Creek just west of Van Buren, put the brakes on progress, Kris and Pat.

As part of the ProLogis warehouse park being built between Route 248 and Hollo and Van Buren roads, Hollo was closed for widening, repaving, straightening and other improvements. Most of the park is in Lower Nazareth, but part of it, as well as a western segment of Hollo Road, is in Palmer.

Lower Nazareth Manager Timm Tenges said the portion of Hollo in his township is completed, so the holdup must be on the Palmer side. His understanding was that the road was supposed to be open by the start of the school year last September.

Palmer Manager Robert Anckaitis acknowledged that progress was delayed by problems between the township's project engineers and ProLogis's engineers regarding design details, calculations and exchanges of information over the box culvert. That was confirmed by ProLogis spokeswoman Melissa Sheehan.

Anckaitis doubts the road ever could have been open by September, but in any event, because of the culvert delays, winter arrived before work could be finished -- always a setback, because asphalt and concrete normally cannot be installed in cold weather. So, as with many road projects, everything had to wait for this year's construction season to arrive, which is just about now.

Anckaitis could not be more specific than to say the road should be open ''sometime this summer,'' folks, so if we hope for July, Hollo will have been closed for a year.

That's pretty long for a road of this kind, though as you mentioned in your e-mails, Kris, the roughly 1.5-mile detour you take on Van Buren to access Route 248 isn't so bad.

Normally, developers, municipalities and their respective engineers and contractors try to complete road improvements as quickly as possible, and certainly within one spring-to-fall construction season, Tenges and Anckaitis agreed. It just didn't work out that way in this case.

You can read the article in it's entirety here.