Montgomery County, PA

 

UPPER GWYNEDD — The Montgomery County Commissioners joined elected officials from Upper Gwynedd and representatives of Merck & Co. to break ground on the much anticipated widening and reconstruction of Sumneytown Pike.

 

Montgomery County is putting up $4.3 million to widen and reconstruct Sumneytown Pike, eliminating a two-lane bottleneck that causes horrendous traffic backups for miles in each direction during rush hour.

 

The project will replace a rail bridge that causes the bottleneck and widen the road to two lanes in each direction with a turn-lane in the middle from Merck to the border of North Wales.

 

Upper Gwynedd and Merck & Co. are matching the County grant with $3.2 million.

 

This is one of four Jump Start projects the County Commissioners have undertaken this year. The purpose is to demonstrate traffic improvements projects that would be included in a new $150 million program that will be brought to voters next year.

 

After the much-publicized collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis two years ago, the state and federal governments have clearly indicated that all of their transportation dollars for the foreseeable future will be used to fix existing roads and bridges that are wearing out.

 

“We’re still feeling the reverberations of that disaster,” Commissioners Chairman James R. Matthews said. “Montgomery County and its municipalities are going to have to get together and fix some of our own problems.”

 

From left to right: Greg Landis, Merck & Co., Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce L. Castor, Jr., Montgomery County Commissioners Chairman Jim Matthews, Montgomery County Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel, Upper Gwynedd Township Manager Len Perrone, Upper Gwynedd Commissioners President James Santi, Upper Gwynedd Commissioners Vice-President Eugene Ziemba and Upper Gwynedd Commissioner Thomas Duffy.