A portion of parking along Ninth Street in Lehighton may have to be removed to better align the road that leads to the recently completed Route 902/South Ninth Street bridge.

Borough Manager Steve Travers said at Monday’s borough council meeting that he met with Calvin Ulshafer, PennDOT project manager, to discuss the area of Ninth and Bridge streets.

Travers told council a portion of Ninth Street toward Bridge Street is not in line with the traffic on the bridge, and that about 200 feet of parking across the street from Blocker’s on Ninth Street would have to be removed.

Councilman Ryan Saunders said “it almost feels like you’re switching lanes.”

Councilwoman Autumn Abelovsky said the borough previously made a separate agreement with Lehighton Area School District.

“That intersection needs a traffic light,” Abelovsky said.

Travers said there’s been a lot of crashes there.

Saunders concurred.

“It’s not a good intersection there,” Saunders said.

Just two weeks ago, emergency personnel were called to a crash with reported entrapment at the intersection of South Ninth and Bridge streets. The crash involved two sport utility vehicles, both coming to rest on South Ninth Street.

After the meeting, Travers explained where the situation stood.

“We need an easement from PennDOT to put this traffic signal control box on PennDOT’s property, but PennDOT won’t give us an easement,” he said.

Road widening project

The reconstruction of Route 443 from the Carbon Plaza Mall in Mahoning Township to the Route 209/Thomas J. McCall Memorial Bridge in Lehighton Borough continues.

Work includes reconstructing roughly 2.25 miles of road, adding a center turn lane along the corridor, adding left-turn lanes and traffic signal improvements at the 443 intersections with Mall Road/Mall Lane and East Penn Street/Mahoning Mountain Road.

The work is designed to improve traffic flow and reduce crashes.

It also involves drainage improvements, traffic signing, utility installation/relocation, new guide rail, and pavement markings.

The project began Feb. 15, 2022, and is anticipated to be complete in September 2024.

H & K Group Inc. of Skippack is the general contractor on the $21,118,085 project.

Agreement

In January 2022, Lehighton Area School Board approved an agreement acknowledging it would be its responsibility to pay for a traffic signal at the intersection of Bridge and Ninth streets if one is installed.

The agreement essentially upholds a memorandum of understanding signed by the district’s board of directors in 2017 when Lehighton’s new elementary center was being completed, accepting responsibility for installation of the signal when and if the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation deemed it necessary.

The traffic signal agreement was the only item holding up Lehighton Borough’s issuance of a certificate of occupancy for the elementary center to the district. The district received the certificate in the days after the board’s January 2022 meeting.

According to the MOU signed in 2017 and the agreement that was approved, the district was to place $10,000 in an escrow account at a bank chosen by the borough. The borough would then draw from the account to pay for electricity, operation, maintenance, repair, restoration and/or replacement of the signal. After the $10,000 from the district was spent, all future costs would fall on the borough.

In the event PennDOT decides a traffic light is necessary, Lehighton Area School District Business Administrator Ed Rarick previously said the money would most likely be pulled from the district’s capital expenditure fund.