State Route 145 Section 08S Safety Improvement Project

SR 145-08S, Lehigh County: This District 5-0 betterment project involved safety improvements to a four-lane, one-mile long congested roadway corridor just north of the city of Allentown. As the prime consultant, LDG was responsible for complete design, from the alternate alignment studies phase through construction consultation which included traffic analysis, environmental investigations, coordination with the Township and commercial interests, roadway and structure design, right-of-way, traffic control, utility coordination, and public involvement.

At the start of the project, this corridor had the highest intersection accident rate in the District. The corridor consists of multiple land uses including two cemeteries, several churches, a school district entrance, three bridge structures, four traffic signals, eight intersecting roadways, and many commercial drives. Construction activities included placement of a center concrete median barrier, flattening a substandard vertical curve, removal of two bridges, replacement of one bridge, intersection reconfigurations, drainage improvements, post construction stormwater management facilities, pedestrian facilities, signal coordination, and several utility relocations.

LDG designed a safe transportation facility with consideration for multiple land uses while minimizing impacts to adjacent environmental and cultural resources. This project included developing a complex TCP that allowed a busy road to function near existing capability during construction.

District 5-0’s evaluation for the alternatives analysis phase of the project included this comment, “Max Inkrote’s performance at the public meeting and at meetings with Whitehall Township has been very good particularly with respect to developing and explaining the alternatives analysis.” For final design, LDG received an “Exceeds Expectations” evaluation and the following comment “The project was very challenging and demanded changes throughout; Max Inkrote’s services are highly commendable to be on top of this project, it is a pleasure working with him and Larson Design Team.”