Major improvements to the messy intersection of Lincoln Highway, Oxford Valley and Bristol Oxford Valley roads in Falls and Middletown Townships are back on track, state Senator Steve Santarsiero and PennDOT officials said during a stop on their Aug. 10 road tour of Bucks County highways.
Speaking at one of the stops at Holicong Park on Route 202 in Buckingham Township, Santarsiero and state transportation department administrators Gene Blaum, Vince Cerbone, Bob Graham, Tim Stevenson and Kevin Herdin said funding is in place for the estimated $3 million project scheduled to start in late summer of 2024.
It has been on PennDOT’s drawing board for well over a decade but has never come to fruition for various reasons. The work will involve several measures to make traffic flow at the intersection safer and smoother.
Current conditions make for “inefficient operation and serious congestion, a problem which is magnified during periods of peak traffic flow,” a PennDOT information sheet read.
While at the Holicong Park stop, Santarsiero and the officials also outlined two projects in Buckingham slated for 2025. They are the installation of left-hand turn signals and other improvements at the intersection of Route 413 and York Road, and installation of a roundabout at the unsignalized spot where Route 202 kind of splits off, continuing south to Doylestown and north to Solebury Township. The two projects together are expected to cost a total of about $3 million, officials estimated.
Also, Swamp Road as it runs through Buckingham is scheduled to be repaved fairly soon, Santarsiero added.
Santarsiero represents the 10th Senatorial District comprised of 27 municipalities throughout the county, and he and the people from PennDOT covered a good part of the district during the tour, starting in Lower Bucks County and working north.
He has done the tours almost every year since becoming a state lawmaker – Santarsiero was a state representative for many years before he was a state senator _ though this was the first since 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It has always been a priority of mine to support funding for transportation infrastructure,” he said. “It’s important for quality of life.”
The tours have been an effective way, along with extensive constituent feedback and other means, to get close looks at the spots most in need of attention and prioritize projects, Santarsiero added.
As one example, he pointed to a stretch of Route 202 along Holicong Park that was potholed and rough before recently getting repaved.
“Now you can drive through there without having to get a realignment afterward,” Santarsiero said.
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