In partnership with Facebook site 222 Sucks, Kutztown resident Dan Spiegel is spearheading an Upgrade 222 e-mail campaign that kicked off Sunday, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m.
“We aspire to raise awareness of the true issues regarding the situation with US 222, and also to participate in calling for all stakeholders to collaborate in a productive manner to achieve the only possible sensible goal for US 222 in our region, which is to upgrade it to a 4-lane, limited access highway between Reading and the I-78 interchange west of Allentown,” writes Spiegel to media.
“We believe that enabling a large constituency to provide a unified message to local, regional, and state entities gives us our best chance to influence the process and cause funding to become available.”
The email campaign went live Sunday, Feb. 22 at 6 p.m., the date chosen significant to the cause, 2/22.
“We anticipate that literally thousands of copies of our statement, each sent along with the sender’s name, address, and e-mail, will be waiting in the inboxes of area legislators, PennDOT District 5, and the planning commissions when they arrive at work Monday morning,” writes Spiegel, a professor at Kutztown University who is heading the campaign as a private citizen.
In the Upgrade US 222 Campaign Kickoff email to the public, Spiegel asks people to participate in the campaign “to effect positive change on US 222” and “make your voice heard.”
People were asked to go to http://upgrade222now.weebly.com/, fill out information on an email page and copy a statement to send to Senator Pat Toomey, Congressman Charles Dent, and Congressman Ryan Costello.
The statement is as follows, “The signer of this statement, who is providing their true name and full address, strongly disagrees with the depiction of proposed roundabouts at several intersections on US 222 between Reading and Allentown as a permanent solution and believes that action must be taken immediately to design and implement a plan to upgrade US 222 into a 4-lane limited access highway in its entirety from Reading to the present US 222 interchange on I-78.
This message requests that the public officeholders and servants, legislators and administrators who receive this communication take any and all possible steps to effect, at the earliest possible opportunity, PennDOT, in concert with the Lehigh Valley & Berks County Planning Commissions, state transportation committees, and appropriate state and federal authorities, to undertake this critical work without delay.
In particular, we ask that the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC), which presently does not even have US 222 on its 20-year priority list, move this critical corridor between Reading and Allentown to its highest priority 5-year list, to match the priority assigned to this road by the Berks County Planning Commission. We understand that unlike in Berks County, US 222 may not be the most important consideration for the county, given the needs of US 22, but we emphatically assert that contrary to LVPC’s assessment, this road IS a major corridor in our region, and the only one that remains mostly a 2-lane thoroughfare.
LVPC’s omission of US 222 from consideration for upgrade in the short-term is an unfortunate oversight that will adversely affect the area’s economy in the near future and beyond, while it presently serves to inconvenience drivers on a daily basis. While planning commission statistics may show other Lehigh Valley highways to be more congested on average, upgrading US 222, which provides access to the Lehigh Valley from the PA Turnpike to the west into the Lehigh Valley, is critical to the area’s economic future.
We request that the millions of dollars of public funds that have been allocated for the roundabout projects at PA 662 and near PA 73 in Berks County, at Schantz Road in Lehigh County, and now also at Long Lane instead be directed towards a concerted effort to formulate a comprehensive plan and procure funds necessary to upgrade US 222 in the Berks and Lehigh corridor to a limited access 4-lane highway.
Thank you in advance for your efforts on behalf not only of the thousands of citizens whose lives are disrupted on a daily basis on US 222, but for the entire region, whose economy requires the modern transportation routes that are presently lacking in the critical corridor between Reading and Allentown.”
Updates will be on the Facebbook page, 222 Sucks https://www.facebook.com/iHate222. “222 Sucks provides on-the-spot updates of disruptions on this highway on a continuing basis.”
“It’s time to see if we can get the people who have the power to change things to work together towards our common goal: A 4-lane, limited access highway from Reading to Allentown that represents an end to the daily delays and all-too-often collisions and a new beginning where a vision for the future of the Lehigh Valley is created by planning infrastructure, including US 222, to not only address today’s problems head-on, but to meet tomorrow’s challenges. This is a unique time, where highway money is available via the new gas tax. Some of it needs to be spent on upgrading US 222… NOW!” writes Spiegel writes in the email campaign.
