On Tuesday at the Chestnuthill Township supervisors meeting, Bohler Engineering of Bethlehem, on behalf of the McDonald’s Corp., took the floor to ask for several waivers from the Chestnuthill Township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance that would apply to the Brodheadsville McDonald’s.

Michael Jeither, the project manager, explained that the construction would be a total reconstruction of the of the drive-through lanes and the traffic flow. It would also change the required 44 parking spaces to 33.

One of the biggest issues was parking and pedestrian safety, because of the changes to the drive-through.

The restaurant currently has what is called a stacked drive-through, because the drive-through customers are lined up in a single lane.

“The maximum of cars parked during these high service times was 21 cars,” he said.

According to the traffic study, changing to a side-by-side drive-through service would provide an increase in capacity and efficiency to meet the consumer demand. And according to the project manager, the proposed development would result in 33 parking spaces, which is more than adequate for the restaurant’s patronage.

Since the majority of the guests use the drive-through facilities instead of dining inside the restaurant, we believe that the expanded drive-through will have a positive impact on public health, safety and welfare,” Jeither said.

When it came to the side-by-side drive-through lanes, the supervisors had some questions about the safety of foot traffic of people parking and walking into the restaurant.

Chuck Gould, chairman of the supervisors, asked how they were going to address the concern of the 15% to 20% that are going to park and walk in, because now they have to get across two lanes of traffic.

According to Jeither, there would be heavy signage warning traffic in both lanes to drive slow and watch for pedestrians walking into the restaurant.

“Drive-through sales have started to increase significantly over the dining sales. Pre-pandemic McDonald’s, most of the locations were reaching about 70% of their sales in drive-through versus 30% of in-restaurant dining. Once the pandemic hit, those numbers reached 90% plus, so McDonald’s is looking at this location to upgrade their drive- through and specifically take their single-lane drive-through and do a dual-lane or a side-by- side drive-through configuration,” he explained.

Another waiver brought up the topic of how large delivery trucks would be able to get into the parking lot. As it is today, the truck can only get out of the lot by going out the entrance and that is with the single-lane stacked drive-through lane.

According to the McDonald’s Corp., the trucks will deliver off peak times and during nonbusiness hours. The driver has a key to the store, and everything is pallet drop.

Minor notes were added to the plan, most of them dealing with signage and parking.

Jeither asked if they could issue a conditional approval. The supervisors said they do not issue conditional approval, and that once all the changes were made it would be a done deal.