Several Middletown Township residents went to the microphone during public comment at the Feb. 6 board of supervisors meeting to express concerns about the upcoming Phase 3 of the U.S. Route 1 Superhighway improvement project and ask board members to help mitigate its impact however they can.
Phase 3 will include improvements from the Penndel/Business Route 1 interchange north through the Route 413 overpass. The phase is in final design and not yet scheduled for construction, according to information put out by PennDOT in January. Phase 2 is ongoing and not expected to be completed until around mid-2026, it added.
Many residents in Middletown, Langhorne, Langhorne Manor and other Lower Bucks municipalities are worried about added traffic to nearby roads and other effects the Route 1 project and a major future overhaul of Route 413 might have.
“The community should be included in decisions that will affect so many,” one resident said at the Feb. 6 Middletown meeting.
“What are you going to do for us?” another asked.
Supervisors’ chairwoman Anna Payne told the audience township officials are “actively involved” in the Route 1 project and sent a joint letter — with Langhorne Borough and Langhorne Manor — back in July asking that PennDOT officials attend a public meeting to provide information and answer questions on Phase 3. The township has not gotten an answer from PennDOT yet, Payne added.
Board member Dana Kane told residents near the end of the meeting “we hear you” and township officials will do everything possible to help.
In other actions from the meeting, the supervisors approved the $54,356 purchase of a VirTra V-100 LE firearms training simulator for the police department. Police Chief Joseph Bartorilla said the simulator will be put in the indoor shooting range on the bottom floor of the police wing of the township municipal building. It will enable officers to train for scenarios like an active shooter in a school and other possible situations without leaving the building, and will also be available for use by nearby departments, he added.
Also approved was the $16,384 purchase of breaching tools for every police vehicle that will enable officers to force entry into locked buildings when necessary and when “time is of the essence,” Bartorilla said. The board also green-lighted the $84,708 purchase of a 2023 Ford F-450 pickup truck with plow and liftgate for the public works department.
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