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A downsized option for Rt. 23
State unveils another possible solution to car-and-buggy clogged highway: a limited-access, two-lane bypass.

Pigeon-holed for more than a year, the Route 23 bypass project has been revived and downsized.

The secretaries of the state departments of Transportation and Agriculture will personally brief local officials and Plain Sect leaders in Leola on May 10 to discuss a new "right sizing" option for a controversial bypass that would be built south of the existing Route 23.

The alternative, which would consist of two lanes rather than a long-proposed four-lane highway in eastern Lancaster County, would be considerably less costly and have a smaller impact on surrounding farmland, a PennDOT official said this morning.

"The department is concerned about bringing costs under control and limiting the impacts major transportation projects have on the environment," said PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny.

"That would include the amount of farmland and the amount of rights of way needed to be acquired."

Penny emphasized today that PennDOT is not pushing the bypass alternative, and that making improvements to the existing Route 23 is still in the mix.

"It's not as if this is THE alternative," Penny said. "It still needs to go through the public involvement process." The upcoming meeting, he noted, "is basically a launch to resume the Route 23 studies."

The Route 23 proposal was one of 14 highway projects around the state abruptly put on hold by PennDOT last spring because of a lack of funding.

Now, the agency is applying the "right sizing" concept to many of those projects.

PennDOT had previously estimated the cost of a four-lane Route 23 bypass at $177 million.

Just last month, PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler met with Bucks County officials to propose scaling a long-discussed Route 202 bypass from a four-lane limited access expressway to a two-lane boulevard.

"That's the challenge facing PennDOT – to still improve traffic flow but done in an affordable way," Penny said of the "right sizing" concept.

When PennDOT officials announced they were shelving the Route 23 project last year, they said they would have to weigh whether a narrower bypass alternative would still carry enough traffic to justify its impact on the farmland.

They suggested today that such an alternative could make a difference in the area's long-standing and worsening traffic woes.

When the Route 23 project was shelved last year, foes of a bypass celebrated.

Groups such as Lancaster Alliance for New Directions favored adding turn lanes and wider shoulders and synchronizing traffic signals on the existing Route 23.

That alternative in the ongoing Route 23 study involves a new road on the abandoned "goat path" from Route 30 at Lancaster to Bareville. The road would then connect to the existing New Holland Pike.

The bypass alternative involves a new road between Route 30 and Blue Ball.

When the study was stopped, it was about one year away from going through a formal public hearing process.

PennDOT, at the time, had hoped to have a draft of the study of alternatives completed this past winter.