With 40,000 cars using it each day, Sumneytown Pike is one of Montgomery County’s busiest roads. And yet despite being home to one of the region’s biggest private employers, it had the same number of lanes as it did 100 years ago.
Started in the 1990s by PennDOT and Merck, the Sumneytown Pike Widening Project spent years in design trying to meet federal requirements. When PennDOT no longer had the money to build the project due to the region’s transportation funding shortage, the Jump Start Program substituted county funds instead. As a result of the Jump Start Program, the scope was simplified, the design was quickly completed, and the project was built—all for less than the original cost.
The project eliminated the bottleneck that occurred between North Wales and Merck by widening Sumneytown Pike to 4-5 lanes, removing the narrow 19th century railroad bridge, modernizing traffic signals, and building new sidewalks east of Church Road.
