Valley Forge Laboratories, Inc.

Location:   City of Pottsville, Schuylkill County

Client:   City of Pottsville

Description:
As Traffic Engineering Consultants to the City, Valley Forge Laboratories, Inc., was retained to conduct a comprehensive traffic study of the City’s Central Business District. In addition to being the largest City in Schuylkill County, Pottsville is also the County Seat. The Downtown Business Corridor is situated along Centre Street, a north-south thoroughfare, and runs for seven blocks from Laurel Blvd. to Mahantongo Street. At Market Street, the central east-west street of the City, Centre Street changed from two-way to one way operation. One of the main goals of the project was to determine whether it would feasible to return Centre Street to two way operation between Laurel and Market Streets.

VFL’s tasks included traffic data collection throughout the downtown area utilizing both our automatic ATR’s and manual turning movement counts; analysis of accident data from the Police Department; parking availability inventory; pedestrian counts; and a signal, sign and pavement marking inventory. Utilizing the collected data, VFL analyzed numerous different scenarios and design alternatives. VFL’s extensive analysis supported a return to two way operation on Centre Street. Utilizing Transyt7-F, VFL was able to optimize and coordinate the signal timings to create better levels of service than existed when the street was one way, while still providing a high level of pedestrian accommodation. The VFL recommendations enjoyed widespread support from the business community, the police department and the Mayor’s office. Specific signal hardware recommendations were made at the affected intersections to convert to the two way alignment, and all signals along the corridor were coordinated with on another.

As a result of VFL’s work, we were subsequently retained by the City Engineer to prepare the revised Signal design plans.