From nearby residents, to most motorists, to the transportation planners and the police, everyone seems to realize that the stretch of Route 220 in the Linden area is dangerous and deadly and in need of radical change and improvement.
And there are statistics to back up the perception, with a long list of tragic accidents on the emergency log just in the past several years. In fact, that stretch of highway has been deadly for decades.
As one transportation official pointed out last week, Route 220 in the Linden area functions as if it's an interstate and it's not.
You don't have center lane left turn lanes on interstates.
You don't have direct highway access from neighborhoods on interstates.
So naturally, most rational people have been wanting to make that stretch of highway safer for years.
The momentum finally seems to be building for some long-term solutions.
The latest, and perhaps the most significant development, is approval of a $350,000 study of the Route 220 corridor last week.
The approval by the Williamsport Area Transportation study group sets up the corridor for federal highway dollars down the road for traffic safety improvements.
Traffic signals?
More limited access?
Elimination of all center turning lanes?
All of those things are possible. And they all cost money.
So it all starts with a pragmatic reference point of solutions, which is the point of the study.
We hope some day to point to the developments of last week as the beginning of the end to the Route 220 tragedy story.
