december 2023
$4.3 Billion Long-Range Transportation Plan Approved
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley’s Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) to invest $4.3 billion over the next 25 years on nearly 500 road, bridge, trails, transit and community projects throughout Lehigh and Northampton counties was overwhelmingly approved by the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) last week.
The LRTP now goes before the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration for review. If passed by those agencies, it goes into effect in 2024. The plan is not a budget, but a roadmap for how the region will maintain and improve its transportation network, based primarily on the federal and state transportation funding that’s projected to flow into the Lehigh Valley through 2050.
Arkansas Visitors Find “Can-Do” Partnerships in the Lehigh Valley
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Mayors, judges and community leaders from the Little Rock, AR region traveled to the Lehigh Valley in October to share best practices that could help them manage the transportation network in a four-county region of 700,000 people.
They left three days later, blown away by the Lehigh Valley’s can-do approach and willingness to work together to get things done.
“It just seems like everyone here recognizes challenges, but there’s this group buy-in that turns every challenge into an opportunity,” said Allen Dodson, Faulkner County Judge, which is the equivalent of a County Executive in the Lehigh Valley. “I’m amazed at how much you get done by working together.”
LVPC Gets $1 million for Route 22 Masterplan
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Nearly 110,000 vehicles travel Route 22 each day, but the roadway now heading into its 70th year will need major work in the coming years to remain the Lehigh Valley’s economic lifeblood.
With that in mind, Sen. Nick Miller has secured $1 million in state Department of Transportation funding to enable the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to direct a masterplan of how to maintain, enhance and potentially widen Route 22 over the next 25 years.
“Route 22 has long been a nuisance for community members and travelers,” Miller said. “I’ve advocated for more funding to make the route wider to fix the near-constant congestion. It’s a route that many, many people utilize, and we need to provide those on the road with a safer, better experience.”
Planning Code Update Would Give Communities Tools to Manage Development
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Municipal, development and community experts from across Pennsylvania gathered at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to debate a legislative bill designed to give municipalities greater control over the large-scale developments arriving at their doorsteps.
Rep. Robert Freeman, Chairman of the Pennsylvania House Local Government Committee, held hearings September 6 for House Bill 782, sponsored by Allentown-based Rep. Michael Schlossberg, to amend the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), the 1968 state law that governs most planning and development issues in Pennsylvania.
While municipal, planning and community advocates testified that HB 782’s requirement that developers provide more information and a plan to mitigate negative traffic and environmental impacts is needed, others worried it would stunt development and job growth.
The LVPC, and its executive director Becky Bradley, have for the past two years brought together municipal partners to campaign for an overhaul of the MPC. Advocates have been calling for the MPC to be strengthened for decades, and the issue is particularly relevant in the Lehigh Valley, where population has grown about 4,000 people a year for seven decades, and more than 30 million square feet of warehouse and distribution centers have been approved for development since 2015.
LVPC Planner Now A Freight Academy Graduate
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC’s Brian Hite is a Transportation Planner, licensed truck driver and certified diesel mechanic, and now he can add another title for his hat rack: Freight Academy Graduate.
Hite in October was one of 37 students nationwide to graduate from the Eastern Transportation Coalition Freight Academy, at Rutgers University. The academy, held about every two years, is an immersive program designed to train public employees and municipal officials about the impacts of how that package gets from a factory floor on another continent to your doorstep, whether it be by plane, train, ship, truck or pipeline.
“I now have a lot better understanding of how freight movements in New Jersey and New York affect us here in the Lehigh Valley,” Hite said. “Coming out of the pandemic, you realize how vital these operations are to our society. The growth of e-commerce has really changed the game.”
talking business with becky bradley: farmland is much more than pretty
November 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
Over the past few decades, the Lehigh Valley has had a lot of development. We had major housing booms in the 1980s and 2000s, and more recently our growing place in the global e-commerce economy has brought buildings the size of which we’ve never seen before. And all that growth has translated into more congestion on our roads. That’s the price of being an attractive place where people want to live, and business operators believe they can flourish.
There’s no disputing that over the past 40 years we have matured into a midsized region, on our way to large. But despite all of our growth, the Lehigh Valley remains very much an agricultural region. It may not feel that way when you are frustrated by taillights at 5 p.m. on a weekday along Route 22 but, in many places in this Valley of ours, if you veer off the beaten path, you’ll find miles and miles of glorious, beautiful, rolling farm fields.
According to the last Census of Agriculture – new farming census numbers are due to be released in February — the Lehigh Valley has 840 farms. Unlike the giant corporate farms of the Midwest, most of ours are small, family-owned farms, with more than half less than 50 acres. About one-third are animal-based, and two-thirds are plant-based. Most are oilseed and grain farms with crops such as corn, soybean, wheat, barley and rye. And while you’ll often see tractors or combines moving across the horizon, many of our farmers are innovators with next level technology.
Greg Capogna and co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission welcome Brian Dietrich, a third-generation farmer and owner of Lynnacres Farm, one of the region's largest dairy operations. They discuss the agriculture that contributes to the area's identity, the preservation of farms that play a large part in our economy, and the work that goes into keeping a farm the size of Lynnacres Farm running day-to-day.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: protecting our agricultural economy
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and Brian Dietrich| WDIY 88.1
December 2023
2023 newslv articles
january 2023
talking business with becky bradley: unraveling housing supply and attainability critical to the region's success
January 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
There are few emotions that match the feeling of fulfilment of owning your first home. I struggle to find words strong enough to describe the sense of accomplishment my husband Josh and I felt as we moved literally a few feet over the Lynn Township line into Heidleberg in 2005. We could stay in the area where my husband grew up even if it was really more than we could afford at the time and needed family help to buy land where we could build.
My husband and his father built our home so we saved a lot of money by doing much of the work ourselves. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family and their homebuilding talent.
That was nearly 18 years ago, and things have only gotten harder for young adults and families. The region’s housing issues have morphed into problem, affecting all six generations alive today, including our babies and our seniors. Housing is a universal requirement at every stage of life, so where we know we have issues we need to unravel them and right now it’s critical to the success of our region.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC, Urban Land Institute To Tackle Housing Attainability in 2023
January 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Developers in 2022 tried to close a Lehigh Valleywide housing shortage by proposing the most units in 16 years, but rising population and interest rates made it more difficult for people to find homes that fit their incomes.
An LVPC analysis shows that even as the housing market cools, skyrocketing interest rates and increasing home values are pricing many out of the market. Consider that the median household income in the Lehigh Valley is $74,158. A family with that income can afford a home with the maximum price of $175,950, according to the federal benchmark defining that a family is cost-burdened if it pays more than 30% of their income on housing.
But just try and find one of those on the market. According to Justin Porembo, CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors, of the roughly 500 homes list for sale in December, just 58 were $176,000 or lower. That means that a typical Lehigh Valley household, with an income smack in the middle of the spectrum, can only afford a home in the bottom 12% of the market, with the remaining half of the Lehigh Valley’s households earning below the median income in an even worse position.
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show aired January 2 on WDIY FM 88.1, and it focused on the state of our evolving housing market. Guests on the show were LVPC Senior Planner Jill Seitz and Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors CEO Justin Porembo, who talked about how despite a market cooling, the region still suffers from a housing shortage, and that existing attainability problems have grown because of rising interest rates. That show is now streaming at wdiy.org.
The LVPC’s next Plan Lehigh Valley show will take a look at the latest population and employment forecasts, with guest LVPC Data Scientist David Jan. That show is scheduled to air at 6:30 pm, February 6.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Assessing the Local Housing Market
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, Justin Porembo and Jill Seitz | WDIY 88.1
December 2022
february 2023
talking business with becky bradley: Unraveling Housing Supply and Attainability Critical to the Region's Success
February 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
There are few emotions that match the feeling of fulfilment of owning your first home. I struggle to find words strong enough to describe the sense of accomplishment my husband Josh and I felt as we moved literally a few feet over the Lynn Township line into Heidleberg in 2005. We could stay in the area where my husband grew up even if it was really more than we could afford at the time and needed family help to buy land where we could build.
My husband and his father built our home so we saved a lot of money by doing much of the work ourselves. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family and their homebuilding talent.
That was nearly 18 years ago, and things have only gotten harder for young adults and families. The region’s housing issues have morphed into problem, affecting all six generations alive today, including our babies and our seniors. Housing is a universal requirement at every stage of life, so where we know we have issues we need to unravel them and right now it’s critical to the success of our region.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Rise Without Dramatic Action
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Climate change has already led the Lehigh Valley to more rain, more flooding, more heat and more health risks, and the greenhouse gas emissions helping to cause those side effects will continue to increase, unless the Region takes decisive action to reduce them.
A Lehigh Valley Gas Assessment shows that the Region is emitting 9.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of heat-trapping gases, and that will grow to more than 10 million CO2e by 2050, unless a collective effort is undertaken by municipalities, businesses and residents to reduce emissions in every facet of life.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Assessment, performed by the LVPC in partnership with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), Moravian College and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), sets the stage for a Lehigh Valley Climate Action Plan to be developed and released in 2024.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Is Your Home On The National Broadband Map?
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Federal Communication’s Commission has embarked on an ambitious plan to make sure every address in America has reliable broadband internet access, and Pennsylvania is part of a full court press to develop a National Broadband Map showing where access is falling short.
In a race to distribute $42.45 billion to help states string a fiber optic infrastructure across the nation, the FCC has already developed its first national map, and welcomes literally everyone to find it at broadbandmap.fcc.gov. There you can plug in your address – or any address – to see if the FCC has deemed it as having access to reliable broadband, or whether it is falling short. Then if you don’t agree with the information in the map, anyone can “challenge” with just a few clicks of the mouse. Ultimately, the FCC will use the map, and whatever improvements are made through the challenge process, to distribute all that money.
But community and government leaders who met in Washington D.C. late last month for the National Association of Regional Council’s (NARC) 2023 Conference of Regions questioned whether the “Internet for All” is really reaching, well, all the people it should.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC Review Fees Changing
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Fees for filing Subdivision and Land Development and Stormwater Management plan applications are increasing, as of March 1.
It’s the first fee increase in nearly six years and comes at a time when development across the region has reached a fever pace, with the frequency and complexity of plans increasing.
LVPC Community and Environmental planners and engineers perform reviews for land development and stormwater management plans designed to determine whether the plans meet local planning and zoning regulation and follow the policies laid out in FutureLV: The Regional Plan. The reviews then give detailed advice so municipalities can determine whether a project should be approved, and how they can be improved to best fit into the surrounding community. The reviews are advisory, leaving the municipality with the power to accept, reject or request improvements to a project.
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show took a deep dive into the LVPC’s 30-year Population and Employment Forecast during its most recent episode February 6, on WDIY FM 88.1. The show focused on the region’s growth in both people and jobs, with guest David Jan, LVPC Economist/Data Scientist. That 30-minute show is now streaming at wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley.
The LVPC’s next Plan Lehigh Valley show will take a look at the LVPC’s 2022 Annual Report, as well as in-person training scheduled for 2023. That show is scheduled to air at 6:30 pm, March 6.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority and Workforce Board Lehigh Valley. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Migrations, generations and populations
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and David Jan | WDIY 88.1
February 2023
march 2023
talking business with becky bradley: everything in moderation,
especially growth
March 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
When it comes to communities, growth is one of the primary factors that local
governments are judged by. For better or worse, regions are judged by it, too. Many
scholarly articles on urban economics, the area where planners and economists
intersect, pontificate on the reasons for this judgment.
But the most relevant and practical argument was outlined by Mario Polese in a City
Journal a decade ago. Polese’s five principles of ‘community success’ are relevant in
the Lehigh Valley and underscored by what is occurring here now.
First, dramatic growth is driven by outside events and size and location determine
wealth. Our proximity to major metros and evolving consumer preferences
exemplifies these measures. Polese notes that well-connected and accessible places
grow faster and that industry leaves an impression on a place, often driving its future.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Rise Without Dramatic Action
March 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Climate change has already led the Lehigh Valley to more rain, more flooding, more heat and more health risks, and the greenhouse gas emissions helping to cause those side effects will continue to increase, unless the Region takes decisive action to reduce them.
A Lehigh Valley Gas Assessment shows that the Region is emitting 9.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of heat-trapping gases, and that will grow to more than 10 million CO2e by 2050, unless a collective effort is undertaken by municipalities, businesses and residents to reduce emissions in every facet of life.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Assessment, performed by the LVPC in partnership with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), Moravian College and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), sets the stage for a Lehigh Valley Climate Action Plan to be developed and released in 2024.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Is Your Home On The National Broadband Map?
March 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Federal Communication’s Commission has embarked on an ambitious plan to make sure every address in America has reliable broadband internet access, and Pennsylvania is part of a full court press to develop a National Broadband Map showing where access is falling short.
In a race to distribute $42.45 billion to help states string a fiber optic infrastructure across the nation, the FCC has already developed its first national map, and welcomes literally everyone to find it at broadbandmap.fcc.gov. There you can plug in your address – or any address – to see if the FCC has deemed it as having access to reliable broadband, or whether it is falling short. Then if you don’t agree with the information in the map, anyone can “challenge” with just a few clicks of the mouse. Ultimately, the FCC will use the map, and whatever improvements are made through the challenge process, to distribute all that money.
But community and government leaders who met in Washington D.C. late last month for the National Association of Regional Council’s (NARC) 2023 Conference of Regions questioned whether the “Internet for All” is really reaching, well, all the people it should.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC Review Fees Changing
March 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Fees for filing Subdivision and Land Development and Stormwater Management plan applications are increasing, as of March 1.
It’s the first fee increase in nearly six years and comes at a time when development across the region has reached a fever pace, with the frequency and complexity of plans increasing.
LVPC Community and Environmental planners and engineers perform reviews for land development and stormwater management plans designed to determine whether the plans meet local planning and zoning regulation and follow the policies laid out in FutureLV: The Regional Plan. The reviews then give detailed advice so municipalities can determine whether a project should be approved, and how they can be improved to best fit into the surrounding community. The reviews are advisory, leaving the municipality with the power to accept, reject or request improvements to a project.
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show held a discussion about the planning commission's 2022 annual report and educational opportunities during its most recent episode March 6th, on WDIY FM 88.1. The show welcomed Hannah Milagio, Program Associate for Community Engagement, and Brian Hite, Transportation Planner, to discuss regional housing and development figures, the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), public training and education classes offered at the LVPC, and more. The 30-minute show is now streaming at wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority and Workforce Board Lehigh Valley. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month.
april 2023
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
HOW WOULD YOU SPEND $3.6 BILLION ON LEHIGH VALLEY TRANSPORTATION?
April 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With a projected $3.6 billion to invest in transportation over the next 25 years, the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study spent March meeting with municipal stakeholders from across the region to determine the transportation needs of all 62 municipalities.
Now, with a roadshow of public meetings in 25 days behind it, LVTS wants to know how you would shape the Lehigh Valley’s transportation network between now and 2050.
The regionwide Transportation Needs Survey will help the update of the region’s Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). The goal is at least 1,000 surveys completed. You can help put us over the top. Find the survey at https://lvpc.org/transportation-plans.html.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
UNITED WAY TO RECOGNIZE LVPC FOR ITS “COMMUNITY BUILDING”
April 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Whether it be making neighborhoods safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, helping municipalities be more accessible to all ages or enabling residents to connect with community resources, the LVPC and United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley (UWGLV) have always had parallel missions.
Next week the two organizations will celebrate those shared values when the UWGLV presents its prestigious Community Builder Award to the LVPC, during its Celebration of Caring event, at 4:30 pm on April 4, at the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem.
The Community Builder Award is presented each year to an individual or organization that supports United Way in its community-building efforts, encourages cooperation, contributes resources to further partnerships, creates a common ground and perseveres in the face of challenges.
talking business with becky bradley: knowledge is power and the lehigh valley region craves it
April 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
There’s a mountain of polls out there that suggest that volunteerism has been falling for at least the past decade, and that decline was only accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. I don’t doubt any of those surveys in the least, but that’s not what we’ve been seeing here at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
Our Lehigh Valley Government Academy classes are aimed at training the next generation of community leaders, and the students walking through our doors are not only people committed to their community, but they come to us to learn how they can be more effective volunteers. And this instruction has never been more important because so much is changing as the region grows in people, business and development.
Annual Report Reveals Development Year for the Record Books
April 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More people. More homes. More industrial. And certainly, more partnerships. The year that was 2022 can best be described in one word: More.
As the Lehigh Valley experienced a year of transition when people, businesses and organizations settled into a new normal brought on by the COVID-19 Pandemic, the region – and the LVPC -- had one of its busiest development years in more than a decade, according to the Annual Organizational Report of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and its sister organization for transportation planning, the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS).
Released March 1, as required by the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code, the Annual Report paints a picture of a region trying to address pent-up demand created not only by the pandemic that temporarily slowed activity, but even the Great Recession that made some developers hesitant to jump back into the market. As a result, 2022 was a year that saw the most homes proposed since 2007, and the most non-residential development proposed – ever. It was that kind of year as the LVPC returned in-person training, while bolstering its online offerings for planning, zoning and transportation classes.
With aggressive driving on the rise, the LVPC is partnering with the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and AARP to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety along some of the region’s most dangerous corridors. Making a more walkable region is the subject of the next Plan Lehigh Valley radio show, at 6:30 pm, Monday April 3, on WDIY 88.1 FM.
The show focuses on why more walkable neighborhoods and downtowns not only improve health and safety, but make economic sense, with guests Carmen Bell, Director of Healthy Aging for the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and LVPC Community Fellow Christian Martinez. Bell and Martinez are mobilizing teams of volunteers to perform a series of “Walk Audits” along the region’s most dangerous corridors, to identify issues that can be improved through infrastructure and enforcement changes.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority and Workforce Board Lehigh Valley. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month. Anyone who misses the live broadcast can catch it streaming online the next day at wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley. All past shows are steaming online.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Unpacking the 2022 LVPC Annual Report
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, Carmen Bell and Christian Martinez | WDIY 88.1
April 2023
may 2023
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Federal, State, LVPC Partnership to Boost Climate Action
May 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has been focusing on climate action for more than a decade, but the regionwide effort now takes a giant step forward with new muscle from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
That muscle comes in the form of a $1 million grant, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), for Climate Pollution Reduction. LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley appeared in Harrisburg earlier this month with DEP Acting Secretary Rich Negrin, EPA Region 3 Administrator Adam Ortiz and PENNVEST chairman Dr. Brian Regli.
Bradley said this is just the beginning.
“This really is a down payment to work on climate action for the foreseeable future,” Bradley said. “This provides us a monumental opportunity here to protect our land, air and water.”
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
A Call to Action on Pedestrian Safety
May 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With aggressive driving on the rise and pedestrians at risk, Lehigh Valley leaders are pulling together and enlisting an army of the willing to help make the region safer and more accessible to walkers, rollers and transit users.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is teaming up with the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and AARP to conduct a walk audit program in which dozens of volunteers, and community and government leaders will fan out across the region to “audit” dangerous, troublesome and busy areas used by pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchair users or transit riders.
Those audits will then be used to devise improvements that can be worked into future LVPC transportation plans funded through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or Federal Highway Administration.
talking business with becky bradley: The Lehigh Valley is more powerful if we work together
May 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
Anyone who’s lived in this region for longer than a couple decades probably remembers when we called ourselves the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area. ABE graced the names of hundreds of businesses, promotions, as well nonprofits and public organizations across Lehigh and Northampton counties.
ABE served us well for a long, long time, but lots of really smart community leaders have spent the past 40 years trying to forget old ABE existed — and not just because it involved three words and two hyphens, and didn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
They did it because they knew we are far more formidable as arguably Pennsylvania’s fastest- growing region than we are as its 10th- and 13th-largest counties, or a cluster of three cities. We are now one Lehigh Valley, and all that hard work of becoming known for our unified vision has never been more important than it is right now, as cities, states, counties and yes regions, begin to compete for more than $2 trillion — yes, with a T — in funding being doled out through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Money from those funds — much of it coming in the form of competitive grants through dozens of state and federal programs — will do everything from repairing roads and bridges to building the backbone to fuel millions of electric cars that will soon be on the road, to upgrading our sewer and water systems to providing critical internet connectivity to underserved communities, to improving air and water quality to mitigating climate change to addressing dozens of other critical issues, each as important as the last.
Lehigh Valley government, community and civic leaders have spent decades marketing what was once known as the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area to become the Lehigh Valley, with a unified vision for the future. With much of $2 trillion in federal funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act being doled out in competitive grants, those efforts now have a chance to pay off big.
The most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show, on WDIY 88.1 FM focuses on why it’s more important than ever to present a unified Lehigh Valley vision, with guests Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO Tony Iannelli and Lehigh Valley Partnership Secretary Dan McCarthy. Iannelli and McCarthy talked about the decades they’ve spent trying to build influence by promoting the Lehigh Valley as a single region that’s working together on a vision for the future. The show is now streaming at lvpc.org/newslv and wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority, Workforce Board Lehigh Valley and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month. Anyone who misses the live broadcast can catch it streaming online the next day. All past shows are streaming online.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: the Benefits of Regionalism in a Competitive World
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, Dan McCarthy and Tony Iannelli | WDIY 88.1
May 2023
june 2023
talking business with becky bradley: a giant leap forward on climate action
June 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
I take a great deal of pride at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission that when faced with even the most difficult planning issues, we roll up our sleeves and run at it unflinchingly, confident we will find a way to make a meaningful impact. Compound-complex problems are the commission’s specialty.
Yet, I confess that for a long time, when someone brought up climate change, one thought often came to mind — big, really big. A larger set of interconnected issues that transcends any one person, region, or nation. Ya, that big. I often think about how the LVPC, counties, municipalities, businesses, nonprofits and citizens can address the depth, breadth, and wickedness of the results of climate change. I pose this: the Lehigh Valley is poised to sprint full speed at this global crisis, with a lot of help from our local, county, state and federal partners at a minimum. You may have heard that the LVPC was awarded a $1 million grant, through the Federal Inflation Reduction Act. While that’s not pocket change, I consider it just a down payment on a multi-year plan to reduce emissions and make the Lehigh Valley more resilient to the effects of climate change. It’s an unprecedented opportunity for climate action now and beyond the four-year period of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Program funding if we are thoughtful and strategic.
Greg Capogna, along with co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission welcome Geoff Reese, LVPC Master Planner and Engineer to talk about climate action.
From Geoff's work on the 2014 Return on Environment report, which quantified the importance of preserving the natural environment in dollars and cents, to the regional Greenhouse Gas Assessment, new grant funding and more, they discuss why addressing climate change is critical to keeping the Lehigh Valley a healthy and attractive place to live.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: The Social and Monetary Value of
Preserving Our Environment
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and Geoff Reese| WDIY 88.1
June 2023
july 2023
talking business with becky bradley: Lehigh Valley residents welcome transportation alternatives
July 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
We really like our cars here in the Lehigh Valley. I get it. We have an extensive road network that makes it easy to get from point A to point B. Because we don’t have the density of big cities like Philly or New York, parking isn’t especially expensive or inconvenient. And save a few minutes a day during rush hours along Route 22, we’re not plagued by the congestion you see on the Schuylkill Expressway or Interstate 95 in Connecticut.
But every fiber of this planner’s being believes that the future of the Lehigh Valley rests with a more diverse transportation network. It’s healthy, better for the environment and will help prevent congestion on our roads. Plus it gives everyone options to get around. And, nothing is more American than choice. Selections provide opportunities. And opportunity is freedom. We want it all, and more than that we need every option we can reasonably create to support our economy, our environment and that ever critical balance, especially as the region grows.
Greg Capogna, along with co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission talk about the recently-conducted Transportation Needs Assessment survey with Hannah Milagio, LVPC Program Associate for Community Engagement.
They discuss the survey's results, how the community desires a balanced approach to funding resiliency, transit, infrastructure, and walking and biking options, how COVID-19 has changed people's priorities, what it takes for a bike or scooter-sharing program to be truly viable, and how the survey will influence the LVPC's upcoming work.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Crafting a Balanced Approach to Transportation Options
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and Hannah Milagio| WDIY 88.1
July 2023
EPA Administrator Regan Visits Valley to Discuss LVPC Climate Pollution Grant
July 2023, Joey Dotta, Community Fellow
The U.S. Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) is investing $5 billion to reduce Climate Pollution and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan visited the Allentown Waterfront last month to discuss how the program’s $1 million grant to the Lehigh valley will help fight the impacts of climate change.
Regan appeared June 27 along the scenic waterfront with government and political leaders that included U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk, Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong and Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Director Becky Bradley.
His visit came a month after the LVPC was awarded a $1 million Climate Pollution Reductions Grant, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
“We know that tackling the climate crisis demands a sense of urgency to protect people and the planet,” Administrator Regan said. “Thanks to Congresswoman Wild’s leadership and President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda, we have an unprecedented opportunity to provide communities like Allentown with resources to develop innovative strategies that address worsening climate change impacts, create good paying jobs, and deliver economic benefits for all.”
Freight Academy Gets Lehigh Valley Education
July 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
When municipal, government and planning officials from across the nation meet semi-annually to learn how goods move quickly from the shipping ports to your doorstep, there’s one can’t-miss classroom: the Lehigh Valley.
The Eastern Transportation Coalition’s (TETC) semi-annual Freight Academy spent a day in the Lehigh Valley June 13, getting a crash course from local leaders and professionals in one country’s fastest-growing freight corridors. Hosted by the LVPC, the group of planning, government and transportation directors from across the nation got a half-day classroom instruction at the ArtsQuest Center, before getting hands-on tours at the Alpla Inc. plastics plant in South Bethlehem and the newly completed 452,000-square-foot Petrucci Development warehouse on Airport Road in East Allen Township.
“You guys have it all, not just a volume of growth, but a diversity of growth – so many freight operations have a presence here,” said TETC’s Director of Freight Marygrace Parker said as her group toured the warehouse. “This is the best freight classroom in the country.”
Celebrating the Lehigh Valley’s Civic Backbone
July 2023, Joey Dotta, Community Fellow
One word comes to mind in describing our vast array of local governments: collaboration. In a region with 62 municipalities, collaboration is an absolute necessity and one of our biggest strengths.
On June 28th, the LVPC hosted a Local Government Appreciation Day barbecue lunch at Wayne Grube Park in Allen Township to celebrate the many government workers who serve the Lehigh Valley. Even Mother Nature seemed to think highly of our local government workers and board officials, providing a much-needed break in an otherwise rainy week, for the event catered by Mission BBQ of Whitehall. Lunch was not without entertainment as a star-studded cast of speakers that included County Executives Phillips Armstrong and Lamont McClure spoke about PennDOT’s Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) classes, traffic safety statistics and regional collaboration.
LVPC's Bradley Recognized for "Remarkable Track Record"
July 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
For the second time in three years, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley has been recognized nationally for leadership in working with Lehigh Valley communities on regional issues.
The National Association of Regional Councils (NARC), during its annual conference in Detroit, in June, awarded the 25-year planning professional the Tom Bradley Award, given each year to recognize ‘the leadership and excellence of one elected or appointed official in advocating for regional concepts, approaches, and programs at any level of government.’
Becky was surprised by the nomination, and could not attend the award ceremony, but Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong, who was attending the conference, accepted the award on her behalf.
join the pedestrian safety movement
July 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The regionwide project to improve pedestrian safety at some of the Lehigh Valley’s most troublesome intersections is off to a flying start, but now project leaders are asking the community to join the movement.
The partnership of the LVPC, United Way, AARP and D&L Heritage Corridor organized “Community Walk Days,” where people can get all the tools they need to become foot soldiers in the battle against bicycle and pedestrian-involved accidents. The community walk days are designed to enable people to become “walk auditors” capable of visiting, evaluating and scoring dangerous, troublesome and busy areas used by pedestrians, bicyclists, wheelchair users or transit riders. After successful community walk days in Easton and Bethlehem, volunteers get one more chance:
August 10 – 9:30 am in Fountain Park in Allentown
Since the regionwide Walk Audit Kick-off in April, dozens of intersections have been audited, but now the walk audit partners are turning to the community to be part of the movement toward a more accessible region.
august 2023
$35 Million LVIA Expansion To Speed Up Security Check-In
August 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley International Airport’s new $35 million expansion project will go live by the end of August, nearly doubling the number of passengers that can get through security during peak times.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, on July 28, helped cut a ceremonial ribbon to the 40,000-square-foot project that expands an airport that now handles roughly 1 million passengers and 118 tons of freight each year.
The project was among thousands being funded by the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but it is the first to be completed, Buttigeig said.
“I know how important this project and this airport are for this entire Lehigh Valley,” Buttigieg said. “It’s also a very special project for me because we have now announced about 37,000 projects that benefit from funding from the infrastructure law … but this is the very first one that I’ve been able to be at where we are celebrating the completion of a project. You delivered this on task, on time and on budget. We’re looking for more of that.”
Busy 2023 Marked by Smaller Homes, Complex Projects
August 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Development proposals across the Lehigh Valley remained heavy in the first half of 2023, as plans were filed for nearly 2,800 new homes and more than 6.4 million square feet of non-residential building.
It extends a seven-year growth spurt in a region that is still suffering from a monumental housing shortage, as developers race to add more homes, even as rising interest rates cause a nationwide cooling. Included in those filings was a drastic increase in the number of ordinance and map changes, as municipalities work to adjust their planning and zoning regulations to better handle the region’s evolving development patterns. The 40 ordinance and map amendments through June puts 2023 on pace to have the most since 2008.
“We've reviewed nearly double the number of municipal ordinances and maps,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We have been urging municipalities to adjust their ordinances to account for our changing development landscape, and they're doing so in record numbers.”
LVPC's bradley named to magazine's pennsylvania power list
August 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
For the second time in three years, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley has been recognized nationally for leadership in working with Lehigh Valley communities on regional issues.
The National Association of Regional Councils (NARC), during its annual conference in Detroit, in June, awarded the 25-year planning professional the Tom Bradley Award, given each year to recognize ‘the leadership and excellence of one elected or appointed official in advocating for regional concepts, approaches, and programs at any level of government.’
Becky was surprised by the nomination, and could not attend the award ceremony, but Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong, who was attending the conference, accepted the award on her behalf.
talking business with becky bradley: Our thirst for stuff is changing the region
August 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
The late great comedian George Carlin used to say your house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Now, you don’t even have to leave your house. More stuff is just a click away and usually it arrives on your doorstep within two days.
That dynamic, and the Lehigh Valley’s growing role in this global online “stuff” economy, has brought drastic changes to our region. Some of those changes are obvious, some not so much. Some are positive, others not so much.
The most obvious is the change in types of development over the last several years. It’s hard not to notice the number of warehouses being built. Local municipalities have approved more than 30 million square feet of new warehouse and logistic centers, just since 2016. These massive structures have set a new bar for building size in the Lehigh Valley, with many of them exceeding 1 million square feet. Consider that the PPL tower, for example, is a quarter that size and the former Bethlehem Steel No. 2 Machine Shop — once the world’s largest industrial building under roof — is about one-fifth the size of this new breed of warehouse. That’s a lot of room for more stuff.
In this new e-commerce economy, our thirst for more and more stuff is changing the Lehigh Valley.
We talked about the many ways the “Amazon Effect” is shaping our roads, land and even skies, during our most recent Plan Lehigh Valley podcast, which aired August 7, on WDIY FM 88.1.
Joining co-hosts Greg Capogna, Becky Bradley and Matt Assad was Lehigh Valley International Airport Executive Director Tom Stoudt, who discussed the airport’s growing air cargo business and the daily Amazon and FedEx flights that brought in 118 million tons of cargo in 2022.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: The Stuff Economy Takes Flight,
With LVIA Executive Director Tom StoudtBecky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and Hannah Milagio | WDIY 88.1
July 2023
september 2023
talking business with becky bradley: $4.39 billion for the underdogs
September 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
Here in the Lehigh Valley, we specialize in playing the underdog card. We’re that scrappy competitor punching well above our weight, usually winning but feeling a bit overlooked, compared to our counterparts in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
We’ve gotten used to seeing the giant federal allocations get doled out to Pennsylvania’s two largest regions.
All of that remains true, but I’m seeing some signs that we’re finally getting our due. The Lehigh Valley’s Draft Long-Range Transportation Plan, under public review right now at lvpc.org, includes $4.39 billion in mostly federal and state money to fund nearly 500 road, bridge, trail, transit and community projects over the next 25 years. That’s a roughly 70% increase over the money projected for this region when we last updated the LRTP just four years ago as the transportation part of FutureLV: The Regional Plan.
Greg Capogna and co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission talk about housing and development with LVPC Regional Planner Joey Dotta.
The group discuss the large number of both residential and non-residential proposals that have been made in the first half of the year; why lease rates, rents, and home prices are still so high; shifting types of housing types; and why civil discourse is needed when having community conversations on these issues.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Development Booms, Housing Types, and Civil Dialogue
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad and Joey Dotta | WDIY 88.1
September 2023
October 2023
talking business with becky bradley: Are developers and communities in a race before changes come?
October 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
If you read national headlines, you’re likely to see them explaining why development is slowing. Interest rates are at the highest point in two decades, housing sales are down and development is grinding to a crawl while investors and developers take a wait-and-see approach, until the headwinds that come from 11 Federal Reserve Bank interest rate hikes in less than two years subside.
Now forget all of that – at least in the context of the Lehigh Valley – because very little of it matches what we at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission are seeing from developers here.
Greg Capogna and co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission welcome Brian Hare from PennDOT to discuss the transportation plan serving as a blueprint for the region's roadways.
The group discusses Lehigh Valley roads and highways, their maintenance, and the money and work that goes into keeping traffic moving smoothly.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Investing in a Smooth Transportation Network
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad and Brian Hare, PENNDOT | WDIY 88.1
October 2023
november 2023
$4.3 Billion Draft Long-Range Transportation Plan Approved
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley’s Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) to invest $4.3 billion over the next 25 years on nearly 500 road, bridge, trails, transit and community projects throughout Lehigh and Northampton counties was overwhelmingly approved by the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) last week.
The LRTP now goes before the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration for review. If passed by those agencies, it goes into effect in 2024. The plan is not a budget, but a roadmap for how the region will maintain and improve its transportation network, based primarily on the federal and state transportation funding that’s projected to flow into the Lehigh Valley through 2050.
Arkansas Visitors Find “Can-Do” Partnerships in the Lehigh Valley
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Mayors, judges and community leaders from the Little Rock, AR region traveled to the Lehigh Valley in October to share best practices that could help them manage the transportation network in a four-county region of 700,000 people.
They left three days later, blown away by the Lehigh Valley’s can-do approach and willingness to work together to get things done.
“It just seems like everyone here recognizes challenges, but there’s this group buy-in that turns every challenge into an opportunity,” said Allen Dodson, Faulkner County Judge, which is the equivalent of a County Executive in the Lehigh Valley. “I’m amazed at how much you get done by working together.”
LVPC Gets $1 million for Route 22 Masterplan
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Nearly 110,000 vehicles travel Route 22 each day, but the roadway now heading into its 70th year will need major work in the coming years to remain the Lehigh Valley’s economic lifeblood.
With that in mind, Sen. Nick Miller has secured $1 million in state Department of Transportation funding to enable the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to direct a masterplan of how to maintain, enhance and potentially widen Route 22 over the next 25 years.
“Route 22 has long been a nuisance for community members and travelers,” Miller said. “I’ve advocated for more funding to make the route wider to fix the near-constant congestion. It’s a route that many, many people utilize, and we need to provide those on the road with a safer, better experience.”
Planning Code Update Would Give Communities Tools to Manage Development
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Municipal, development and community experts from across Pennsylvania gathered at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to debate a legislative bill designed to give municipalities greater control over the large-scale developments arriving at their doorsteps.
Rep. Robert Freeman, Chairman of the Pennsylvania House Local Government Committee, held hearings September 6 for House Bill 782, sponsored by Allentown-based Rep. Michael Schlossberg, to amend the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC), the 1968 state law that governs most planning and development issues in Pennsylvania.
While municipal, planning and community advocates testified that HB 782’s requirement that developers provide more information and a plan to mitigate negative traffic and environmental impacts is needed, others worried it would stunt development and job growth.
The LVPC, and its executive director Becky Bradley, have for the past two years brought together municipal partners to campaign for an overhaul of the MPC. Advocates have been calling for the MPC to be strengthened for decades, and the issue is particularly relevant in the Lehigh Valley, where population has grown about 4,000 people a year for seven decades, and more than 30 million square feet of warehouse and distribution centers have been approved for development since 2015.
LVPC Planner Now A Freight Academy Graduate
November 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC’s Brian Hite is a Transportation Planner, licensed truck driver and certified diesel mechanic, and now he can add another title for his hat rack: Freight Academy Graduate.
Hite in October was one of 37 students nationwide to graduate from the Eastern Transportation Coalition Freight Academy, at Rutgers University. The academy, held about every two years, is an immersive program designed to train public employees and municipal officials about the impacts of how that package gets from a factory floor on another continent to your doorstep, whether it be by plane, train, ship, truck or pipeline.
“I now have a lot better understanding of how freight movements in New Jersey and New York affect us here in the Lehigh Valley,” Hite said. “Coming out of the pandemic, you realize how vital these operations are to our society. The growth of e-commerce has really changed the game.”
talking business with becky bradley: farmland is much more than pretty
November 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
Over the past few decades, the Lehigh Valley has had a lot of development. We had major housing booms in the 1980s and 2000s, and more recently our growing place in the global e-commerce economy has brought buildings the size of which we’ve never seen before. And all that growth has translated into more congestion on our roads. That’s the price of being an attractive place where people want to live, and business operators believe they can flourish.
There’s no disputing that over the past 40 years we have matured into a midsized region, on our way to large. But despite all of our growth, the Lehigh Valley remains very much an agricultural region. It may not feel that way when you are frustrated by taillights at 5 p.m. on a weekday along Route 22 but, in many places in this Valley of ours, if you veer off the beaten path, you’ll find miles and miles of glorious, beautiful, rolling farm fields.
According to the last Census of Agriculture – new farming census numbers are due to be released in February — the Lehigh Valley has 840 farms. Unlike the giant corporate farms of the Midwest, most of ours are small, family-owned farms, with more than half less than 50 acres. About one-third are animal-based, and two-thirds are plant-based. Most are oilseed and grain farms with crops such as corn, soybean, wheat, barley and rye. And while you’ll often see tractors or combines moving across the horizon, many of our farmers are innovators with next level technology.
On this episode, Sally Handlon and co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission discuss development numbers and figures for the first nine months of 2023. They focus on the large number of development plans that were announced during October, even as home sales have slowed significantly.
They discuss what just happened, why they think it's happening, and what it could mean for the future of the Lehigh Valley and its development.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: a burst of local development
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad and Sally Handlon | WDIY 88.1
November 2023
December 2023
Check out all of our past NewsLV articles!
NEWSLV ARCHIVE
2023
january 2023
talking business with becky bradley: unraveling housing supply and attainability critical to the region's success
January 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
There are few emotions that match the feeling of fulfilment of owning your first home. I struggle to find words strong enough to describe the sense of accomplishment my husband Josh and I felt as we moved literally a few feet over the Lynn Township line into Heidleberg in 2005. We could stay in the area where my husband grew up even if it was really more than we could afford at the time and needed family help to buy land where we could build.
My husband and his father built our home so we saved a lot of money by doing much of the work ourselves. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family and their homebuilding talent.
That was nearly 18 years ago, and things have only gotten harder for young adults and families. The region’s housing issues have morphed into problem, affecting all six generations alive today, including our babies and our seniors. Housing is a universal requirement at every stage of life, so where we know we have issues we need to unravel them and right now it’s critical to the success of our region.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC, Urban Land Institute To Tackle Housing Attainability in 2023
January 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Developers in 2022 tried to close a Lehigh Valleywide housing shortage by proposing the most units in 16 years, but rising population and interest rates made it more difficult for people to find homes that fit their incomes.
An LVPC analysis shows that even as the housing market cools, skyrocketing interest rates and increasing home values are pricing many out of the market. Consider that the median household income in the Lehigh Valley is $74,158. A family with that income can afford a home with the maximum price of $175,950, according to the federal benchmark defining that a family is cost-burdened if it pays more than 30% of their income on housing.
But just try and find one of those on the market. According to Justin Porembo, CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors, of the roughly 500 homes list for sale in December, just 58 were $176,000 or lower. That means that a typical Lehigh Valley household, with an income smack in the middle of the spectrum, can only afford a home in the bottom 12% of the market, with the remaining half of the Lehigh Valley’s households earning below the median income in an even worse position.
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show aired January 2 on WDIY FM 88.1, and it focused on the state of our evolving housing market. Guests on the show were LVPC Senior Planner Jill Seitz and Greater Lehigh Valley Realtors CEO Justin Porembo, who talked about how despite a market cooling, the region still suffers from a housing shortage, and that existing attainability problems have grown because of rising interest rates. That show is now streaming at wdiy.org.
The LVPC’s next Plan Lehigh Valley show will take a look at the latest population and employment forecasts, with guest LVPC Data Scientist David Jan. That show is scheduled to air at 6:30 pm, February 6.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Assessing the Local Housing Market
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, Justin Porembo and Jill Seitz | WDIY 88.1
December 2022
february 2023
talking business with becky bradley: Unraveling Housing Supply and Attainability Critical to the Region's Success
February 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Rise Without Dramatic Action
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
There are few emotions that match the feeling of fulfilment of owning your first home. I struggle to find words strong enough to describe the sense of accomplishment my husband Josh and I felt as we moved literally a few feet over the Lynn Township line into Heidleberg in 2005. We could stay in the area where my husband grew up even if it was really more than we could afford at the time and needed family help to buy land where we could build.
My husband and his father built our home so we saved a lot of money by doing much of the work ourselves. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family and their homebuilding talent.
That was nearly 18 years ago, and things have only gotten harder for young adults and families. The region’s housing issues have morphed into problem, affecting all six generations alive today, including our babies and our seniors. Housing is a universal requirement at every stage of life, so where we know we have issues we need to unravel them and right now it’s critical to the success of our region.
Climate change has already led the Lehigh Valley to more rain, more flooding, more heat and more health risks, and the greenhouse gas emissions helping to cause those side effects will continue to increase, unless the Region takes decisive action to reduce them.
A Lehigh Valley Gas Assessment shows that the Region is emitting 9.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of heat-trapping gases, and that will grow to more than 10 million CO2e by 2050, unless a collective effort is undertaken by municipalities, businesses and residents to reduce emissions in every facet of life.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Assessment, performed by the LVPC in partnership with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), Moravian College and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), sets the stage for a Lehigh Valley Climate Action Plan to be developed and released in 2024.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Is Your Home On The National Broadband Map?
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Federal Communication’s Commission has embarked on an ambitious plan to make sure every address in America has reliable broadband internet access, and Pennsylvania is part of a full court press to develop a National Broadband Map showing where access is falling short.
In a race to distribute $42.45 billion to help states string a fiber optic infrastructure across the nation, the FCC has already developed its first national map, and welcomes literally everyone to find it at broadbandmap.fcc.gov. There you can plug in your address – or any address – to see if the FCC has deemed it as having access to reliable broadband, or whether it is falling short. Then if you don’t agree with the information in the map, anyone can “challenge” with just a few clicks of the mouse. Ultimately, the FCC will use the map, and whatever improvements are made through the challenge process, to distribute all that money.
But community and government leaders who met in Washington D.C. late last month for the National Association of Regional Council’s (NARC) 2023 Conference of Regions questioned whether the “Internet for All” is really reaching, well, all the people it should.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC Review Fees Changing
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Fees for filing Subdivision and Land Development and Stormwater Management plan applications are increasing, as of March 1.
It’s the first fee increase in nearly six years and comes at a time when development across the region has reached a fever pace, with the frequency and complexity of plans increasing.
LVPC Community and Environmental planners and engineers perform reviews for land development and stormwater management plans designed to determine whether the plans meet local planning and zoning regulation and follow the policies laid out in FutureLV: The Regional Plan. The reviews then give detailed advice so municipalities can determine whether a project should be approved, and how they can be improved to best fit into the surrounding community. The reviews are advisory, leaving the municipality with the power to accept, reject or request improvements to a project.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Migrations, generations and populations
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna and David Jan | WDIY 88.1
February 2023
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show took a deep dive into the LVPC’s 30-year Population and Employment Forecast during its most recent episode February 6, on WDIY FM 88.1. The show focused on the region’s growth in both people and jobs, with guest David Jan, LVPC Economist/Data Scientist. That 30-minute show is now streaming at wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley.
The LVPC’s next Plan Lehigh Valley show will take a look at the LVPC’s 2022 Annual Report, as well as in-person training scheduled for 2023. That show is scheduled to air at 6:30 pm, March 6.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority and Workforce Board Lehigh Valley. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month.
march 2023
talking business with becky bradley: everything in moderation,
especially growth
March 2023, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
When it comes to communities, growth is one of the primary factors that local
governments are judged by. For better or worse, regions are judged by it, too. Many
scholarly articles on urban economics, the area where planners and economists
intersect, pontificate on the reasons for this judgment.
But the most relevant and practical argument was outlined by Mario Polese in a City
Journal a decade ago. Polese’s five principles of ‘community success’ are relevant in
the Lehigh Valley and underscored by what is occurring here now.
First, dramatic growth is driven by outside events and size and location determine
wealth. Our proximity to major metros and evolving consumer preferences
exemplifies these measures. Polese notes that well-connected and accessible places
grow faster and that industry leaves an impression on a place, often driving its future.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley Greenhouse Gas Emissions Will Rise Without Dramatic Action
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Climate change has already led the Lehigh Valley to more rain, more flooding, more heat and more health risks, and the greenhouse gas emissions helping to cause those side effects will continue to increase, unless the Region takes decisive action to reduce them.
A Lehigh Valley Gas Assessment shows that the Region is emitting 9.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) of heat-trapping gases, and that will grow to more than 10 million CO2e by 2050, unless a collective effort is undertaken by municipalities, businesses and residents to reduce emissions in every facet of life.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Assessment, performed by the LVPC in partnership with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP), Moravian College and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), sets the stage for a Lehigh Valley Climate Action Plan to be developed and released in 2024.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Is Your Home On The National Broadband Map?
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Federal Communication’s Commission has embarked on an ambitious plan to make sure every address in America has reliable broadband internet access, and Pennsylvania is part of a full court press to develop a National Broadband Map showing where access is falling short.
In a race to distribute $42.45 billion to help states string a fiber optic infrastructure across the nation, the FCC has already developed its first national map, and welcomes literally everyone to find it at broadbandmap.fcc.gov. There you can plug in your address – or any address – to see if the FCC has deemed it as having access to reliable broadband, or whether it is falling short. Then if you don’t agree with the information in the map, anyone can “challenge” with just a few clicks of the mouse. Ultimately, the FCC will use the map, and whatever improvements are made through the challenge process, to distribute all that money.
But community and government leaders who met in Washington D.C. late last month for the National Association of Regional Council’s (NARC) 2023 Conference of Regions questioned whether the “Internet for All” is really reaching, well, all the people it should.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC Review Fees Changing
February 2023, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Fees for filing Subdivision and Land Development and Stormwater Management plan applications are increasing, as of March 1.
It’s the first fee increase in nearly six years and comes at a time when development across the region has reached a fever pace, with the frequency and complexity of plans increasing.
LVPC Community and Environmental planners and engineers perform reviews for land development and stormwater management plans designed to determine whether the plans meet local planning and zoning regulation and follow the policies laid out in FutureLV: The Regional Plan. The reviews then give detailed advice so municipalities can determine whether a project should be approved, and how they can be improved to best fit into the surrounding community. The reviews are advisory, leaving the municipality with the power to accept, reject or request improvements to a project.
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Unpacking the 2022 LVPC Annual Report
Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, Hannah Milagio and Brian Hite | WDIY 88.1
March 2023
The LVPC’s most recent Plan Lehigh Valley radio show held a discussion about the planning commission's 2022 annual report and educational opportunities during its most recent episode March 6th, on WDIY FM 88.1. The show welcomed Hannah Milagio, Program Associate for Community Engagement, and Brian Hite, Transportation Planner, to discuss regional housing and development figures, the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP), public training and education classes offered at the LVPC, and more. The 30-minute show is now streaming at wdiy.org/show/plan-lehigh-valley.
The LVPC is partnering with WDIY National Public Radio on the monthly talk show focused on planning in the region, showcasing FutureLV: The Regional Plan and other work being done by the Commission and partners such as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority and Workforce Board Lehigh Valley. The show airs at 6:30 pm, the first Monday of every month.
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2022
FEBRUARY 2022
STOP THE INSANITY OF OLD PLANNING CODES - December 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Remember those super catchy early 1990s commercials featuring weight loss expert Susan Powter, insisting that losing weight and raising self-esteem did not require starving yourself or expensive equipment to “stop the insanity”?
Instead, Powter argued smart choices included minimizing high-calorie, low-nutritional foods and sticking to an achievable exercise routine.
Thirty years on and we know that Powter was right. All things in moderation helps achieve balance and leads to sustainable success. The same goes for land development.
Three consecutive years of seeing more development and more complex proposals than the year before — even as our population grows with a new wave of people relocating from New York and New Jersey — has us asking some sobering questions. Where’s the moderation? Balance? What’s our new normal and how are we going to protect and enhance the quality of life we treasure so much?
OUR ROAD NETWORK DOESN'T KNOW THE PANDEMIC IS STILL HERE - February 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC SETS NEW TRAINING, EDUCATION SCHEDULE - February 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The continued need for masks, vaccinations and social distancing make it clear that we very much remain in the midst of a surging global pandemic, but the Lehigh Valley’s road system is telling a very different story.
According to the region’s road network, the COVID-19 Pandemic – or at least its impacts on our travel habits – have subsided, as traffic on some of the Lehigh Valley’s roadways now equals, and in some cases, surpasses pre-pandemic levels.
Blame it on people returning to most aspects of life, even as some still work from home, or blame it on the increasing parade of Amazon and FedEx trucks wearing a path to your doorstep, but the numbers don’t lie. Total traffic that dropped nearly 50% virtually overnight along key sections of highway in the Lehigh Valley in March of 2020, had regained all that loss and began 2022 about 4% above pre-pandemic levels, according to traffic counts done by the LVPC and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has a full schedule of education and training scheduled for 2022 to help planners, zoners, municipal officials and residents navigate the Lehigh Valley’s evolving land development and transportation landscape.
The LVPC’s Lehigh Valley Government Academy will include four in-person planning and zoning courses, at least three Transformative Talks virtual sessions and dozens of Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) classes in partnership with PennDOT.
The COVID-19 Pandemic forced the suspension of some in-person class in 2020, but LVGA has been retooled to handle some classes virtually, while using social distancing to handle others that are more effective in person.
MARCH 2022
YES, THE LEHIGH VALLEY IS FACING HUGE DEVELOPMENT PRESSURE. NO, WE'RE NOT SITTING IDLE - February 2022, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
It’s easy to make the argument that the Lehigh Valley is one of the best places in the country to grow a family or business because we have the best of all worlds here. We’re a day trip from some of the nation’s most spectacular urban settings, beaches, historic and cultural centers, and the place we call home has a high quality of life, a unique character and an identity all its own.
As a result, we’re one of the fastest-growing regions in the Pennsylvania, and COVID-19 is only accelerating that growth, as people reassess their priorities, life choices and balance — and increasingly they’re choosing here.
But with success comes growth and with growth comes change. That’s why comprehensive planning has never been more important. Before your eyes glaze over because I just laid down a 50-point Scrabble word, know that communities across the Lehigh Valley are embracing comprehensive planning because it’s their best weapon against unfettered growth and development.
Right now, we’re working with 31 communities to draft four multi-municipal plans that will help them save money, find efficiencies and manage growth by working together on planning, zoning and community development issues. These include six Northern Lehigh County communities updating a plan they first struck in 2004 and 10 Nazareth area communities modernizing their 2006 agreement to go along with five Catasaqua/Northampton area and 10 Slate Belt communities who are working together on multi-municipal plans for the first time.
TRAIL CONNECTIONS GROW WITH NEW LINK INTERACTIVE MAPS - March 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has one of Pennsylvania’s most extensive collections of multi-use trails, yet few people know they could get from one side of the region to the other without needing a center line, guiderail or car.
THE LINK Trail Network is trying to change that and last month unveiled an interactive map organizers hope will entice more people to explore a recreation and commuter network that’s 125 miles and growing. For the trail enthusiast, the new online mapping can provide the kind of information needed to plan a multi-day excursion or commute to work, and it can help the casual trail user get beyond the wooded paths in their own neighborhood.
“THE LINK Trail Network’s new interactive map is part of THE LINK Trails Coalition’s continued efforts to provide helpful information to people of all ages and abilities and encourage them to use all of the beautiful trails that we have here in the Lehigh Valley,” said Claire Sadler, Executive Director at Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and a partner of THE LINK Trails Coalition that includes the LVPC. “Our new interactive map is a valuable tool that all trail users can benefit from when planning their activities on the trail, including recreation, exercise, education and alternative transportation.”
APRIL 2022
TRUCK DRIVER SHORTAGE SLOWS FREIGHT - April 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
It’s unlikely that anyone driving along Interstate 78 will say ‘there really needs to be more trucks out here,’ but ask most anyone trying to move freight and they’ll say they’re having a terrible time finding truckers.
The fact is the nation is in the midst of a truck driver shortage and its especially acute in the Lehigh Valley, where companies are scrambling to find enough drivers to carry the increasing amount of freight flowing through the region.
What it means for consumers is longer wait times for all those online goods they’re ordering, and the next time you see empty shelves while shopping, don’t assume its stuck on a ship waiting to get into an ocean port.
“It more likely to be in a packed container that’s sitting idle because we couldn’t get a trucker to move it,” said Brian Wanner, General Manager of Peters Brothers Logistics, in Lenhartsville. “We have 60 trucks, but we could have double that if we could hire enough truck drivers to move them. It’s frustrating.”
PATIENCE IS BITTER, BUT ITS FRUIT IS SWEET WHEN IT COMES TO LEHIGH VALLEY'S HOUSING MARKET- March 2022, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
The Lehigh Valley’s housing market is hotter than a Phoenix summer, and it will take longer than anyone wants to correct some of the challenges this creates for individuals and families, communities, lenders, realtors, developers and elected officials. While I’m apt to quote notorious 1980s commercial icon Crazy Eddie, because housing “prices are insane,” it’s important to understand what is causing what the region’s housing market is experiencing and what this means.
To unravel this complex market, we need to move beyond the shock and awe, and instead understand what is being done and what more we can do. While entertaining, Crazy Eddie is no substitute for where we really need to work, and that’s on patience, because much is being done.
Instead, let’s opt for philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who theorized over 275 years ago, “patience is bitter, but it’s fruit is sweet.” Translation: Pain before the gain.
Pain is a good way to describe what anyone trying to buy a home is going through right now.
Desperate buyers, most making the biggest investment of their lives are waiving inspections, paying cash and bidding tens of thousands of dollars over asking prices for homes that are sometimes selling within hours of hitting the market.
LVPC ANNUAL REPORT DETAILS MUCH DEVELOPMENT, MUCH ACCOMPLISHED - April 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
A deepening global pandemic didn’t stop the rush of development across the Lehigh Valley, and it didn’t stop the LVPC from growing its impact as a resource for the community in 2021.
The LVPC’s 2021 Annual Activity Report, first released during the February 24 Commission meeting, shows the most housing development in more than a decade, continued pressure to build more industrial space and a steadily growing community adapting to new rules brought on by the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
“I think what 2021 told us is we’re successful as a region because of our ability to adapt to challenges,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “It’s evident in the fact that we are increasingly a place where residents and businesses want to be. How we manage that growth is the key to our future.”
may 2022
LVPC'S "ANSWER MAN" GEOFF REESE RETIRING AFTER 42 YEARS - May 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Over the past four decades in the offices of the LVPC, Director of Environmental Planning Geoff Reese has built a reputation for low-octane coffee, wearing a tie to even the most informal work get-together and offering “opportunities” his colleagues knew meant they were about to get a lot of work.
Outside these offices he is simply known as the Lehigh Valley’s foremost expert on stormwater management, one of the region’s most respected engineers and the co-author of ground-breaking environmental reports and analyses that’s helped shape life across Lehigh and Northampton counties.
More than 42 years after Geoff arrived at the LVPC for a job his bosses thought he’d keep for a year, he’s retiring, effective May 13, leaving behind a legacy of dedication that impacts all 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities.
“It’s been a great ride,” Geoff said during his final Commission Board meeting. “This place has become a second home. I know some of my colleagues may think I never go home. I’m really proud of the work we do here and grateful for the support I’ve always been given by this board, the counties, former executive director Mike Kaiser and now Becky [Bradley].”
WHEN $80 MILLION DOESN'T SEEM LIKE A LOT - May 2022, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
On its face, the headline you just read is ridiculous.
In what world is $80 million not a truckload of money? Especially when we’re talking about money funded almost entirely by the taxpayer.
But in the world of long-term transportation infrastructure maintenance, that kind of money can feel like a bucket full of water in the Olympic-size pool of funding we’re going to need to handle the needs of arguably Pennsylvania.
The new $1.2 billion Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is a much-needed, groundbreaking investment in our nation’s infrastructure. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect is that, after decades of neglect, it injects a sense of urgency to a transportation network that sits at the heart of our economy and daily lives.’s fastest-growing and most successful region.
Certainly, the $80 million the IIJA will pump into the Lehigh Valley over the next four years is much appreciated. But as we enter the Public Comment period of our draft four-year, $484.7 million Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), it has become crystal clear that this money is no quick fix for our many needs. It doesn’t reverse 30 years of not investing enough and it certainly doesn’t erase this region’s list of unfunded transportation projects that sits at $4 billion — yes, with a “B” — and growing.
LEHIGH VALLEY INVESTING $484 MILLION ON TRANSPORTATION NETWORK - May 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Over the next four years the Lehigh Valley will invest nearly a half-billion dollars on 118 road, bridge, trail, and transit projects that reach into every corner of the region.
The Draft 2023-2026 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) makes major investments such as $66 million for the Route 309 and Tilghman Street interchange and $21 million to rehabilitate the Hill-to-Hill Bridge in the Bethlehem, but it also spends nearly $10 million on pedestrian, bicycle and trail projects in communities across the region and pumps extra money into maintaining the region’s deteriorated bridges.
The TIP includes about $80 million from the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but the plan will remain a draft until the public weighs in. The 30-day Public Comment period runs through May 31.
“We’re a growing region with a lot of infrastructure needs and this plan takes a comprehensive, thoughtful approach to addressing as many as possible,” said LVPC Director of Transportation Planning and Data Paul Carafides. “Our goal is always to create a safe, connected transportation network that provides access to everyone, whether they drive or not.”
DEVELOPMENT SURGES AS COMMUNITIES TAKE ACTION - May 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Dozens of communities are changing their official maps or zoning laws, 31 are making plans to work together to control development and the Leigh Valley is now working with four neighboring regions on a plan to control freight as it moves through Eastern Pennsylvania.
These are the responses to a Lehigh Valley development landscape that shows no signs of slowing, according to the first quarter data compiled by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
In the first three months of the year, the LVPC reviewed plans for more than 1,300 new homes and 3.5 million square feet of non-residential proposals – most of it for new warehouse space. That puts the region on pace to match a 2021 development year that saw the most new home plan reviews since 2007 and more than 11 million square feet of new warehouse proposals.
June 2022
LANTA Expanding Express Bus Service - June 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More convenient bus service that gets people to the Lehigh Valley’s busiest destinations faster will attract more riders and ultimately help the region manage development, while preserving its unique character.
That’s the purpose of the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority’s new Enhanced Bus Service (EBS), which uses limited stops and more frequent runs on two key Lehigh Valley routes to get people through the region faster.
EBS, often called Bus Rapid Transit in other regions, first began in the Lehigh Valley in September, with a route carrying people from Easton, through Bethlehem and Allentown and on to the commercial districts of Trexlertown. Running from 5 am to midnight, with limited stops and more frequent runs, what is called Route 101 – Blue Route gets people to key activity spots like downtowns in Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown, the Park and Ride facility in Bethlehem Township, Coca-Cola Park, Muhlenberg College, Dorney Park and Hamilton Crossings.
Beginning June 20, a second enhanced bus route, called Route 100 – Green Route, will be added carrying people from Whitehall, through Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, covering such stops as Wind Creek Casino and the Park and Ride facility in Hellertown. The idea is to increase service and speed to the places most used by people for work, shopping and recreation.
LVPC'S "ANSWER MAN" GEOFF REESE RETIRES AFTER 42 YEARS - June 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Over the past four decades in the offices of the LVPC, Director of Environmental Planning Geoff Reese has built a reputation for low-octane coffee, wearing a tie to even the most informal work get-together and offering “opportunities” his colleagues knew meant they were about to get a lot of work.
Outside these offices he is simply known as the Lehigh Valley’s foremost expert on stormwater management, one of the region’s most-respected engineers and the co-author of ground-breaking environmental reports and analyses that’s helped shape life across Lehigh and Northampton counties.
More than 42 years after Geoff arrived at the LVPC for a job his bosses thought he’d keep for a year, he retired, effective May 13, leaving behind a legacy of dedication that impacts all 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities.
“It’s been a great ride,” Geoff said during his final Commission Board meeting. “This place has become a second home. I know some of my colleagues may think I never go home. I’m really proud of the work we do here and grateful for the support I’ve always been given by this board, the counties, former executive director Mike Kaiser and now Becky [Bradley].”
JULY 2022
In her eight years at the LVPC, Tracy Oscavich helped create the Annual Lehigh Valley Awards, obtained a nationally competitive $21.2 million transportation grant that will create jobs for thousands and opportunity for thousands more, and helped drive a greater organization focus on equity and inclusion.
For those, and countless other impacts that have helped make the region a better place to live, Oscavich, the LVPC’s Director of Administration, has been named to the Lehigh Valley 2022 Forty Under 40 list, by Lehigh Valley Business.
"The 2022 Forty Under 40 recipients have demonstrated professional accomplishments, community service and a commitment to inspiring change, particularly under challenging circumstances over the past few years. Their resiliency and forward-thinking have made them leaders in the Greater Lehigh Valley," said Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, senior group publisher of Lehigh Valley Business. "They also know the value of mentoring and guide others. We at Lehigh Valley Business congratulate them and look forward to their future success."
Not long ago, driving an electric car was thought to be for the cutting edge, tree-hugging consumer with a willingness to burn money rather than fossil fuels.
But that time is quickly passing as the electric car is powering its way into the mass market where the rest of us can envision seeing one in the driveway. And why not? It’s good for the environment, good for the soul and, ultimately, good for the economy. I’m not suggesting your drive to work is about to be congested by plug-in vehicles, but that day is a lot closer than most people think.
Certainly the forces that will make it happen — investors, transportation planners, automakers and early adopters — are already preparing for this surge. Tesla sells a fraction of the vehicles of the Big Three, yet investors have made it the world’s most valuable company, with a market capital five times the size of Fiat/Chrysler (Stellantis), Ford and General Motors — combined. While those Big Three sell millions more cars each year, it’s Tesla owner Elon Musk who is easily the world’s richest person.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC), in partnership with Lehigh County, has been recognized nationally for its work in the community during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The LVPC and County were given the National Association of Regional Council (NARC) Achievement Award in June during NARC’s three-day, 56th Annual National Conference in Columbus, OH.
The recognition was given specifically for the February 2021, Job and Housing analysis that identified the neighborhoods, on a municipality and school district basis, where families were most likely to struggle with job and housing loss during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It included data on the number of households that were struggling with housing costs and jobs most likely threatened by the pandemic.
The analysis helped the county determine how to target it CARES Act and American Rescue Plan funds to where it is needed most, including allocations to the Cedarbrook elder care facilities, small businesses and equity communities.
AUGUST 2022
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) is funding a study to determine what it would take to bring passenger rail travel back to the Lehigh Valley.
PennDOT Deputy Secretary Jennie A. Louwerse Wednesday, during a meeting of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, announced a comprehensive study to determine the costs, ridership potential and ongoing expenses that would come from creating a passenger rail connection that would help riders travel beyond the Lehigh Valley region.
The announcement comes as the $1.2 trillion federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) allocates $66 billion into improving and enhancing passenger rail service nationwide.
“The great thing about the Infrastructure Law is that it allows us to take a look at what it takes to reinstate [passenger rail] service,” Louwerse said to the LVTS. “I believe this study will provide a solid foundation for the Lehigh Valley to know what do we need to do to make this happen.”
I have been thinking a lot about democracy lately and how important it is to a productive, safe and civil society. We are living in a time of incredible change, and how we choose to respond will determine our ultimate success or failure.
I can pontificate on the many winds of change from the invasion of Ukraine to housing to inflation, but focusing on places where we can make an immediate and meaningful difference, right now is best. Before I jump in on details of the place where each of us can support democracy and positive outcomes for ourselves, our families and our community, I issue this promise: It isn’t as boring as it sounds.
Of all the places where we come together as a society, our public rights-of-way have some of the most profound impact on our lives, every day, every year, every lifetime. Yep, that’s right, roads, trails, bridges, bike lines, crosswalks and sidewalks. They account for the greatest percentage of publicly owned or managed space in the region and outside of the Western U.S., in most places. The Lehigh Valley hosts 4,143 miles of roads, 2,077 miles of sidewalks and 300 miles of trails.
US Department of Commerce broadband czar Andy Berke visited the Lehigh Valley last week to pledge that every person in America will have access to reliable, affordable internet, and $65 billion is already set aside to make it happen within five years.
If you’re reading this online, then you probably don’t realize what a game-changer it will be for the Lehigh Valley because according to a Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) analysis, just 6% of the region’s neighborhoods have the type of high-speed internet Berke said will be necessary. That’s a hidden shortfall that’s impeding student learning and business growth, while widening the equity gap for disadvantaged communities.
It’s a gap U.S. Rep. Susan Wild and Berke said they’re determined to close nationwide, during a panel discussion at the Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC), that also inlcuded LCCC President Dr. Ann Bieber, Lynn Township Dairy Farmer Brian Dietrich, Lehigh County Commmissioner Geoff Brace, Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority Director Erin Smith, Workforce Board Lehigh Valley Executive Director Nancy Dischinat and LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley.
In her eight years at the LVPC, Tracy Oscavich helped create the Annual Lehigh Valley Awards, obtained a nationally competitive $21.2 million transportation grant that will create jobs for thousands and opportunity for thousands more, and helped drive a greater organization focus on equity and inclusion.
For those, and countless other impacts that have helped make the region a better place to live, Oscavich, the LVPC’s Director of Administration, has been named to the Lehigh Valley 2022 Forty Under 40 list, by Lehigh Valley Business.
"The 2022 Forty Under 40 recipients have demonstrated professional accomplishments, community service and a commitment to inspiring change, particularly under challenging circumstances over the past few years. Their resiliency and forward-thinking have made them leaders in the Greater Lehigh Valley," said Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, senior group publisher of Lehigh Valley Business. "They also know the value of mentoring and guide others. We at Lehigh Valley Business congratulate them and look forward to their future success."
OCTOBER 2022
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
9th Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook to Feature Data, Awards – And You
September 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The 2020s have already been a decade for the history books – between a global pandemic, social and economic shifts, and emerging technologies, the world is changing rapidly. Through it all the Lehigh Valley has proven to be strong, adaptive and resilient.
Please join us from 8 am-10 am, Tuesday, November 15, for the 9th Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook + Awards, when we’ll celebrate that resiliency, crown the first Community of Distinction since 2019, announce the 2022 FutureLV Heroes Award winners and release new important data on population projections, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation trends, housing, development and broadband technology.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley’s “Main Street” Surpassed 100,000 Vehicles A Day
September 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone who has found themselves on Route 22 going roughly 55 mph under the speed limit around 4 pm, will not be surprised to know that it’s easily the busiest road in the Lehigh Valley.
According to newly installed Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) traffic counters, the highway initially called the Lehigh Valley Thruway now carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day. But that only begins to tell the story of a road that, unlike most highways, sees only a minor dip in traffic on holidays and weekends, and sees a relatively low ratio of trucks for a region that now specializes in them.
The new data has been available since PennDOT installed continuous traffic monitors that count the number and type of vehicles that travel daily on Route 22, just west of Airport Road. It flipped on the new system in May to show that segment of road carries between 102,000 and 109,000 vehicles each weekday.
“We’ve always known there was a lot of vehicles on Route 22, but now we’re collecting data 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the number and type of vehicles traveling on the Region’s busiest road,” said LVPC Transportation Planner Brian Hite, who works with PennDOT to conduct the region’s traffic count program. “This will be a valuable tool in planning for the future of improvement and maintenance.”
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
TALKING BUSINESS WITH BECKY BRADLEY: excited for the passenger rail journey
September 2022, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
As a young girl growing up in Springfield, Illinois, I remember how exciting it was to take the Amtrak train to see my grandparents in St. Louis.
My grandmother, even though she has been gone for over 30 years, is still the most fabulous person I have ever known. 110% put together, 110% of the time, clothes, shoes, jewelry, hair, makeup, nails, and most important, in mind and wit. Always ready to sing and dance, and I associate my train travel experiences with her. It was easy, glamorous and fun.
I loved the travel to and from St. Louis almost as much as the sweet and sassy-style makeup meets big band-infused dance party I had at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Grandpa Bradley accompanied the entire production on his trumpet with Grandma singing the lyrics of Mildred Bailey.
But it was more than that. The fact that we were traveling by train was the beginning of the fun. There’s just something exciting and comforting about speeding along the rails as American landscapes roll past. Vacation started as soon as I stepped on that train and continued until I stepped off in Springfield on return.
november 2022
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
9th Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook to Feature Data, Awards – And You
November 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The 2020s have already been a decade for the history books – between a global pandemic, social and economic shifts, and emerging technologies, the world is changing rapidly. Through it all the Lehigh Valley has proven to be strong, adaptive and resilient.
Please join us from 8 am-10 am, Tuesday, November 15, for the 9th Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook + Awards, when we’ll celebrate that resiliency, crown the first Community of Distinction since 2019, announce the 2022 FutureLV Heroes Award winners and release new important data on population projections, greenhouse gas emissions, transportation trends, housing and development.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
CAN A WAREHOUSE BE GREEN?
November 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Our compulsion with online shopping has spawned an evolving landscape dotted with giant warehouses strategically placed to get products to your doorstep within two days.
The trade-off for all that convenience is the worry by many that these giant boxes along the highway, and the trucks they bring with them, are detracting from the character of a region known for its farmland, open space and natural resources.
But would some of the impact be mitigated if warehouses were greener, more sustainable structures? Can developers be enticed to include solar panels? Or more green infrastructure? Or designs that better fit the landscape?
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
TALKING BUSINESS WITH BECKY BRADLEY: WANT A SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY? PUT ON SOME OVERALLS
October 2022, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
I’ve spent several weekends over the last month training with professional planners from around the state as we build our muscle to support the counties, local governments and public that are increasingly being tested by growth and development.
No one in an elected or appointed position in the Lehigh Valley hasn’t felt the pressure as developments zoning appeals and lawsuits rain down upon them. Most officials do what they can to address the onslaught of activity within the confines of the law. Most citizens, equally as exasperated as officials, are well-meaning and want to be part of the growth management solution as well.
Communities often feel unprepared even though the tools for success are right in front of us, through the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code. That state enabling legislation is complicated, onerous, and frankly as dusty as your grandfather’s attic. But, even if the tools in your community are still in their original packaging, in need of sharpening, or the handle is cracked, they are still tools. Use them.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
pLAN LEHIGH VALLEY: Managing Growth, HB 2768, and Farmland Preservation with Commissioner Geoff Brace
October 2022, Becky Bradley, Matt Assad, Greg Capogna, and Geoff Brace | WDIY 88.1
Greg Capogna, along with co-hosts Becky Bradley and Matt Assad from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission welcome Geoff Brace, chairman of the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners to discuss a very timely topic: growth management.
As the Lehigh Valley remains one of the fastest-growing regions in the state, the group discusses development pressures, the Municipalities Planning Code, House Bill 2768, farmland and open space preservation, and more.
Tune in to new episodes of Plan Lehigh Valley the first Monday of every month from 6:30 to 7:00 PM following The Inside Dish.
DECEMBER 2022
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
talking business with becky bradley: hOlding our annual meeting in person again beats zoom — by a long shot
December 2022, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
I realize this is going to sound odd and random and vague and simplistic — but I was recently reminded how much I like people. It’s not like that’s something I forgot, but it’s easy to lose sight after two years of webinars, endless email chains and virtual public meetings through Teams, Zoom, Webex, GoToMeeting, Google Meet. . . . You get the idea.
Meeting people in two dimensions just isn’t the same, and that was never more obvious than at our Ninth Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook + Awards event at Lehigh University’s Iacocca Conference Center. Since 2014, we’ve gathered once a year with our partners, community organizers and government leaders from across the Lehigh Valley and beyond to celebrate excellence in planning, trade best practices and forecast how we see the Lehigh Valley evolving.
LVPC’s Oscavich is Named to 2022 Lehigh Valley Forty Under 40 List
July 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LV OUTLOOK 2022: STEADY GROWTH THROUGH 2050 AND THE NEED TO MANAGE IT
December 2022, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley will continue decades of consistent growth, even as regions across Pennsylvania and the nation shrink. That’s going to bring more people, more development, more vehicles, and that always means more emissions.
That usually strengthens the economy, but it also means we’ll have to work even harder to manage our growth, create attainable housing, evolve our infrastructure and ultimately reduce our emissions. That was the story told by a raft of data released at our 9th Annual Lehigh Valley Outlook + Awards event, Nov. 15 at Lehigh University’s Iacocca Conference Center.
The first in-person Outlook since it went virtual during the COVID-19 Pandemic also crowned Easton as the 2022 Community of Distinction, given every year since 2014 to one municipality that demonstrates a strong commitment to planning excellence that is consistent with FutureLV: The Regional Plan. North Whitehall and Upper Saucon were honorees for Community of Distinction.
2021
DECEMBER 2021
8TH ANNUAL GALA CELEBRATES THE PAST, WHILE FOCUSING ON THE FUTURE - December 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Local governments are going to need to step up their broadband game to deal with an increasingly virtual future, the nation’s plummeting birthrate will affect everything and the new infrastructure bill is going to change how communities fund transportation projects.
Those were just a few of the revelations from an expert panel of futurists who appeared during the 2021 Lehigh Valley Gala + Awards, the LVPC annual event that aired December 9 on Vimeo.
The 60-minute event also included appearances by community leaders, an LVPC and LVTS 60th year anniversary celebration video and a tribute to former longtime LVPC Executive Director Mike Kaiser, who died in August.
The Gala culminated with the awarding of the FutureLV Heroes Award to the Youth Ambassadors in the CREATE Resilience program at Nurture Nature Center in Easton.
The full Gala + Awards video is now streaming at lvpc.org/lv-awards.
LVPC AWARDED $21.2 MILLION GRANT TO BUILD COMMUTER ROAD AND TRAIL - December 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has been awarded a $21.2 million grant to build a scenic commuter road and trail from the Allentown’s Lehigh Riverfront into Whitehall Township.
The money, awarded through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) Transportation Discretionary Grant program, will help fund a $55.6 million project creating a robust multimodal commuting, emergency management, and equitable access corridor connecting urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods along a 3.5-mile stretch from Hamilton Street in Allentown, beyond Route 22, and into Whitehall Township.
The LVPC, with help from dozens of businesses, government and community partners, applied for the federal grant money to be added to the $34.4 million in matching funds which includes money from state grants, the City of Allentown and The Waterfront Development Company, which is owned by Jaindl Enterprises, owns the right-of-way and is building a $425 million business and residential park along Allentown’s riverfront.
The Waterfront Development Company, and its major development project, played an integral role in providing matching funds and information for the grant application.
The grant was announced in November by U.S. Senator Bob Casey.
TRACY OSCAVICH BECOMING LVPC ADMINISTRATION DIRECTOR WITH BRUCE RIDER’S RETIREMENT - December 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
As the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission closes its 60th year of serving Lehigh and Northampton counties, it looks to a 2022 with new administrative leadership.
Bruce Rider, Director of Administration, will retire December 31, bringing an end to a stellar six years in which he helped stabilize LVPC finance and pension funds and guide the organization’s growing role as a resource for data, development and social policy.
Rider’s retirement opens the door for Director of Development Tracy Oscavich to take over as Director of Administration January 1.
“Bruce has been such a vital part of who we’ve become over the past six years. We’re certainly going to miss his steady leadership,” said Executive Director Becky Bradley. “But we’re also excited for Tracy. She’s been working side-by-side with Bruce for years and her experience really puts us in a great situation heading into 2022.”
STEVEN GLICKMAN ELECTED LVPC CHAIR - December 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The New Year will bring new leadership at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission with the election of Steven L. Glickman as chair of the 37-member board, during the annual reorganization December 23.
Glickman, RA, CSI, is an Easton architect taking the reins from Greg Zebrowski, whose maximum two-year term ends with the close of 2021.
Glickman is a 24-year Commission member who has been Vice Chair the past two years and previously served as Chair in 2010-2011.
“I am honored to serve Lehigh County and the Lehigh Valley as Chair of the LVPC,” Glickman said. “I’m proud of the work we’ve done with Greg as Chair, and I plan to continue shaping the LVPC’s path toward a more sustainable and equitable place for all residents to live, work and enjoy.”
IF YOU NEED TO GET AROUND, NOVEMBER WAS A BIG MONTH - November 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Cue the fanfare trumpets because this week deserves musical flourish. First, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill into law, followed by the announcement that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) awarded the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission $21,158,854 for the Riverside Drive Multimodal Revitalization Corridor.
I’ll start with what I’ve been asked at least a dozen times in the last few days. What does the new federal infrastructure funding means for the Lehigh Valley? It means a minimum of $330 million dollars over the next four years with a potential for an additional $10-$12 million. Those funds are determined and distributed by a complicated formula that involves population, miles of road, safety, congestion and air quality data, among other factors outlined by Congress, USDOT and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). The funds are sent to the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS), the LVPC’s sister agency, to be programmed over the next four years on what is known as the Transportation Improvement Program or TIP.
It’s also important to note that the allocation by Congress to transportation makes up generally 80% of all transportation funding in America, making the federal government the largest investor in our mobility.
NOVEMBER 2021
PENNSYLVANIA'S LAND USE LAW IS CRAZY - October 1, 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Pennsylvania land use law is compound, complex, convoluted, confusing — and a little crazy. More and more it’s not “crazy good,” especially when addressing rapid growth in the Lehigh Valley. The entire region is in the middle of boom, all types of development, all the time. But with growth comes a series of choices about quality of life, economy, environment, utilities, transportation, parks, farmland preservation, short-term gains versus long-term gains, and sometimes no gains at all.
Let’s unpack the development review and approvals process, and net effect of lot-by-lot decision-making.
First, the decision-makers. Under the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) — the law that governs planning, zoning and how communities develop — the local government has final decision-making authority on all approvals. In the Lehigh Valley, that’s 62 separate municipalities. As the planning agency for Lehigh and Northampton counties, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) sees plans early and provides advisory guidance on how a proposal is consistent or not or any shade in-between, with the goals, policies and actions of “FutureLV: The Regional Plan.”
BIKES, TRAINS AND NO AUTOMOBILES - October, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
There are few things more uplifting than a kid on a bike, unless maybe you throw a train in there, too. That inspiring combination made for a great day along the D&L Trail, September 18, as members of the LVPC, Community Bike Works and Coalition for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) rode the train through the Lehigh Scenic Gorge and then made the 25-mile trek back to Jim Thorpe by bike.
The daylong excursion was part kick-off for Bike Works’ annual spin-a-thon fundraiser, and part celebration of the Bike Works students winning LVPC’s 2020 FutureLV Heroes Award, given each year to individuals or groups that exemplify the policies of FutureLV: The Regional Plan.
Community Bike Works, with two locations in Allentown and one in Easton, teaches life’s lessons through bicycles to more than 500 students from across the region each year. Community Bike Works’ student leadership council won the award specifically for their work advancing multimodal transportation alternatives in the Lehigh Valley.
“The folks with us today are the recipients of the 2020 FutureLV Heroes Award for their bike leadership throughout our region now and into the future,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley, in leading off the 25-mile ride. “So, these folks get to ride with capes flying behind them as we take this beautiful ride down the D&L Trail.“
The day began in Jim Thorpe, where 17 adults and students boarded a Reading and Northern Railroad train, with their bikes loaded in the cargo car, and took the hourlong scenic rail ride through the Lehigh River Gorge to White Haven. After lunch in White Haven, the group embarked on a three-hour bike ride that marked the start of Community Bike Works Spin-a-thon 2021, benefitting youth programs such as the organization’s groundbreaking Earn a Bike Program.
LEHIGH VALLEY LEADING MEGA-REGION PLAN TO CONTROL FREIGHT IMPACTS -
October, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing EditorThe global compulsion for online shopping has increased freight through the Lehigh Valley, causing an increasing burden on its aging infrastructure, but the impact of all those goods speeding through the region doesn’t just stop when the trucks cross outside Northampton and Lehigh counties.
With that in mind, the LVPC is spearheading the creation of the Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Alliance to build a multi-regional coalition to work with state and federal agencies to better understand freight movements, so a strategy can be developed to reduce freight’s impact on the transportation network, land use, environment and ultimately quality of life in nearly 400 municipalities in the alliance.
The five Metropolitan Planning Organizations joining together on the project are the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS), Lackawanna-Luzerne Transportation Study (LLTS), Lebanon County Metropolitan Planning Organization (LEBCO), Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance (NEPA) and Reading Area Transportation Study (RATS).
SEPTEMBER 2021
DIVERSITY, BULGING SUBURBS FUEL LEHIGH VALLEY GROWTH - September, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley is growing in population and diversity, as people flock to Lehigh and Northampton counties for their beauty, job opportunities and high quality of life.
The Valley’s population of 687,508 people is a more than 40,000 increase since 2010, making it one of the fastest-growing regions in a state where 44 of 67 counties shrunk.
Much of it can be attributed to increases in Non-White residents, and in particular Hispanics or Latinos, as the number of people who identify with that ethnicity grew by nearly 45,000.
“The Lehigh Valley’s diversity is one of its great strengths and the numbers show that it’s certainly playing a key role in our growth,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “The fact is, this is still a very desirable place to live for anyone looking for a higher quality of life. We have a lot to offer.”
The Census is taken every 10 years to provide a clear picture of who we are and where we’re headed, and the numbers dictate how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding will be spent and where it will be invested. The latest numbers can be found at census.gov.
TROC PROPOSES MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR OVERHAUL OF HOW PA FUNDS TRANSPORTATION - September, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania’s Transportation Revenue Options Commission has drafted a multibillion-dollar menu of potential new funding sources designed to replace the state’s flailing gas tax and reverse a three-decade history of underfunding the transportation needs in the Lehigh Valley and statewide.
The plan delivered to Gov. Tom Wolf uses a combination of vehicle fees, road user fees and highway tolling, as well as ridesharing and package delivery fees to raise as much as an additional $11.5 billion a year, as early as year five of a phased plan.
The proposal was crafted after Wolf appointed a commission of transportation and finance professionals from across the state, including LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley and Senator Patrick Browne locally, to close the $9.3 billion gap in how much Pennsylvania needs to fund transportation annually, and what it actually spends.
The full report can be found at https://www.penndot.gov/about-us/funding/Pages/TROC-Report.aspx
“The best part about the funding proposal is that it offers a wide variety of options and a wide variety of ways to package them,” said Bradley, who represented the Lehigh Valley and the state’s urban metropolitan planning organizations on the TROC. “We know the gas tax isn’t sustainable, and we know we need to invest more than we are. This addresses both of those issues if the State Legislature agrees.”
IN MEMORY OF MICHAEL KAISER, FORMER LEHIGH VALLEY PLANNING COMMISSION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - August 23, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
When Mike Kaiser sold his South Whitehall Township home last year, his daughter spent hours in the basement packing thousands and thousands of slides and photos. It included everything from architectural plans to blue prints to photos of landscapes, roads and just about anything that caught the longtime planner’s expert eye.
The overwhelming volume only re-enforced what Wendy Kaiser knew about her dad.
“He had a lifetime love affair with the Lehigh Valley,” Wendy Kaiser said. “He was so proud of this region and so proud of his work.”
Kaiser, who spent more than 45 years as Executive Director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission before retiring in 2013, died August 20 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease. He was 82 years old.
LVPC AND DEP TO PARTNER ON REGIONAL CLIMATE ACTIONS - September, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Home prices in the Lehigh Valley have increased 25% in the past 18 months but compared the nation and much of the Northeast, homes in this region remain “undervalued”, according to market experts.
With the national median sales price of a home pushing past $350,000, and neighboring regions in New York and New Jersey nudging above $500,000, the Lehigh Valley’s $250,000 median sales price in May looks good to workers within the region and investors from outside.
That means an overheated market where homes are selling in days to desperate buyers paying cash will likely last well after other regions begin cooling off, said Gay Cororaton, Director of Housing and Commercial Research for the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
“I’d recommend people get used to this because it’s not changing anytime soon – at least not in [the Lehigh Valley],” Cororaton said. “It’s a location that remains well below the national average and well below many of its neighboring regions. It’s just a very attractive place to buy right now.”
NO MOATS, NO PIRANHAS AND NO REASON TO PANIC - August 27, 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Not a week passes when I don’t hear someone say “Why can’t you stop all this development going on? It’s killing our region.”
Let me first say, it’s not killing, but changing, our beautiful region, and controlling it with a balanced approach is going to be key in the coming years.
Secondly, we don’t have the power to build moats and fill them with piranhas to keep people, their vehicles and their online shopping deliveries out. And our municipal partners don’t have the power to turn away developers who follow the rules.
Like it or not, Pennsylvania is a right-to-develop state, which means every municipality has to accommodate every type of development — including warehouses — and municipalities can’t deny developers who comply with the zoning that’s in place.
AUGUST 2021
TO INVEST IN HEALTHY, SAFE TRANSPORTATION, ACT NOW - July 16, 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
With trillion-dollar infrastructure bills dominating national news, and even local projects like the Route 22 bridge exceeding $100 million, it’s easy to become numb to the giant price tags that often come with maintaining our transportation network.
But even in the world of highway reconstruction and major bridge replacements there are plenty of relatively small investments that can bring a big return in the form of a heathier transportation network. A number of current initiatives that help us achieve this. In partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and US Department of Transportation the LVPC has supported 12 Local Technical Assistance Program field visits, 18 technical consultations and 16 trainings, and awarded $1.4 million in Transportation Alternatives Set Aside (TASA) funds to five projects and programs that support a healthy, safer and equitable transportation system. That’s just in the last six months.
LVPC JOINS FEDERAL RESERVE BANK PROGRAM TO LIFT SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS - August, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC has joined a seven-member Lehigh Valley cohort that over the next nine months will develop a plan to expand opportunities for small Allentown businesses owned by people of color.
The Reinventing Our Communities (ROC) program is part of a nationwide effort by the Federal Reserve Bank that turns to community organizations like the LVPC and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation to analyze systematic inequities in the market, and then develop a plan to remove them for small businesses owned by Black, Indigenous or people of color.
That covers roughly 10% of all small businesses in Allentown, where the population includes 14.7% Black and 52.5% of residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino.
For the project, LVPC will be partnering with the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation, City of Allentown, Community Action Development Corp. of Allentown, The Rising Tide Fund, Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise at Lehigh University and two Allentown small businesses – Visit Vans and Straight A Uniforms.
LEHIGH VALLEY HOUSING CRUNCH IS HERE TO STAY - August, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Home prices in the Lehigh Valley have increased 25% in the past 18 months but compared the nation and much of the Northeast, homes in this region remain “undervalued”, according to market experts.
With the national median sales price of a home pushing past $350,000, and neighboring regions in New York and New Jersey nudging above $500,000, the Lehigh Valley’s $250,000 median sales price in May looks good to workers within the region and investors from outside.
That means an overheated market where homes are selling in days to desperate buyers paying cash will likely last well after other regions begin cooling off, said Gay Cororaton, Director of Housing and Commercial Research for the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
“I’d recommend people get used to this because it’s not changing anytime soon – at least not in [the Lehigh Valley],” Cororaton said. “It’s a location that remains well below the national average and well below many of its neighboring regions. It’s just a very attractive place to buy right now.”
JULY 2021
FIXING OUR TRANSPORTATION NETWORK WILL BE EXPENSIVE; NEGLECTING IT WILL COST MORE - June 3, 2021, Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Let me start by laying a couple of giant numbers on you: $8.1 billion and $4 billion.
The first, $8.1 billion, is the shortfall Pennsylvania has annually in addressing its transportation needs. As a result, the network maintenance and improvements are falling behind. For example, as of 2019, 2,500 bridges statewide were rated in poor condition.
The second, $4 billion, is the shortfall the Lehigh Valley has over the next 25 years, according to the analysis in “FutureLV: The Regional Plan,” in funding its transportation needs. That’s just to maintain what we have in good condition, not to make major changes. And that number will continue to grow as more people and businesses move here.
It’s not like I’m sounding some previously secret siren here. This alarm has been blaring for more than two decades. But I am saying that we’ve reached a tipping point and we, as taxpayers, commuters, businesses, residents, governments and consumers, need to start listening to it. Now. Yes, right now!
There’s no quick fix and no magic bullet because this is a very complex problem. Under our current four-year Transportation Improvement Program, the Lehigh Valley expects to spend $452 million on road, bridge and transit projects.
YOUR VIEW: BECOMING 'WAREHOUSE VALLEY' NOT AREA'S ONLY ECONOMIC OPTION - June 8, 2021, Morning Call Editorial, Greg Zebrowski, LVPC Chairman
The Lehigh Valley made the New York Times again last week, and why shouldn’t we be part of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” in one of the world’s most trusted daily publications? Thousands of people who work in New York and New Jersey choose to live here in the Lehigh Valley — in some cases enduring a daily 90-minute, mind-numbing commute along Interstate 78 — just to take advantage of this region’s unique character and high quality of life. It should surprise no one that our successful and growing region seems to be getting publicity with greater frequency in recent years.
But the story I’m referring to is “A New Crop in Pennsylvania: Warehouses.” It detailed the proliferation of large warehouses sprouting up in the Lehigh Valley and put a specific focus on laying out the pros and cons of the more than 30,000 warehouse-related jobs that can start at $16 an hour for workers with no more than a high school diploma. These warehouses and these jobs have a place in our economy.
I don’t so much take issue with what the article said, but more so with what it didn’t say. While it was noting how warehouses have made the Lehigh Valley a depot on the global supply chain — true — it didn’t say that our future is not even remotely dependent on these buildings or these jobs. It didn’t say that we have some of the world’s largest and most dynamic companies innovating and creating the jobs of the future. While natural pet food pioneer Freshpet spends $100 million to grow in the Hanover Township, Northampton County, Orasure Technologies is at the cutting edge of COVID-19 rapid testing innovation in Bethlehem, even as Mack Truck produces the kind of zero emission electric trucks that will be picking up trash from New York City streets as part of the city’s ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2035.
THE TIME FOR CLIMATE ACTION IS NOW - July, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has been experiencing more intense storms, higher rainfall amounts, increased flooding, less snow and rising temperatures. Climate change is already impacting the region.
The LVPC has been including climate action policy in all of its recent plans, but there’s a lot of work ahead. For that reason, the LVPC and city leaders gathered for a public meeting in June to discuss what’s in place, what climate action is being developed and what more must be done to battle this unprecedented threat to our environment and way of life.
The LVPC has been including climate change mitigation policies in its plans since its groundbreaking Climate and Energy Element was released in 2014, and Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton are actively developing plans now.
The Climate and Energy Element goals established seven years ago laid the foundation for all of the LVPC plans to follow. That report was the work of 16 Sustainable Communities Partners from the region, funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
$1.4 MILLION AWARDED FOR PEDESTRIAN, MULTIMODAL PROJECTS - July, 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) June 16 approved more than $1.4 million in projects designed to improve safety and expand bicycle and pedestrian options across the region.
The money, awarded through the federally regulated Transportation Alternative Set-Aside (TASA) Program, covers a two-year period. The projects selected go towards the implementation of FutureLV: The Regional Plan and Walk/RollLV: Active Transportation Plan. Specifically, the projects support equitable education and access to the Lehigh Valley’s transportation system.
“Expansion of healthy transportation options, centered in safety, air quality and congestion reduction projects that enhance bicycle, pedestrian, transit and ADA improvements are critical to the region’s success,” said Becky Bradley, LVTS Secretary and Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director.
LVPC'S BRADLEY WINS NATIONAL LEADERSHIP AWARD - July 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The year 2020 was a time of crisis in which the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission expanded its central mission of managing the region’s growth while planning for its future to include helping the community through the COVID-19 Pandemic.
For her leadership in bringing about that evolution, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley Thursday was given the Walter Scheiber Leadership Award, by the National Association of Regional Councils during its annual conference Thursday.
Bradley was one of two executive directors nationwide given NARC’s leadership award during the virtual conference attended by elected, government and planning professionals from across country.
Brian O. Martin, Executive Director of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, also received the award.
“I am so pleased and so proud as President of NARC to be able to celebrate these achievements in regional cooperation, excellence, and leadership,” said NARC President Bob Cannon, Supervisor of Clinton Township, Michigan and former chair of Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. “What greater honor is there than to be able to recognize the valuable contributions of my colleagues.”
THE D&L TRAIL GETS A LITTLE LONGER - July, 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The ambitious journey to create a 165-mile trail from Bristol, Bucks County to Wilkes-Barre took a giant leap forward in June with the start of project to carve a 1.5-mile section of the D&L Trail connecting Northampton and North Catasauqua.
The $1.5 million project, to be completed by year’s end, will extend from Canal Street Park to the Lehigh County line, for the first time giving the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Trail an unbroken path through Northampton County.
That will bring to 148 the number of miles that have been completed along the trail, but who’s counting? Well, pretty much anyone who’s been contacting the D&L and state offices asking when they can plan their three-to-four-day trek along the long-anticipated trail.
JUNE 2021
PENNDOT, LVPC TECH ASSIST PROGRAM: AN INVESTMENT IN SAFETY, EFFICIENCY - June 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Traffic Engineer Patrick Wright and LVPC Senior Planning Technician Brian Hite stood along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Allentown as traffic whizzed past, seemingly oblivious that people standing at the crosswalk meant they should be stopping.
But that was the point of why they were there: to work with Allentown City officials to raise pedestrian awareness and safety at an intersection that carries 16,000 vehicles a day within two blocks of three schools and a youth recreation center.
The Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) is now doing house calls for municipalities trying to improve safety and prioritize pedestrian and bicycle awareness. It’s all part of a partnership between PennDOT and the LVPC to offer feet-on-the-ground advice.
The best part: it makes communities safer and it’s all free.
“PennDOT considers this an excellent investment because it not only helps make the transportation network safer, but it allows our communities to get the best bang for their transportation buck,” Hite said. “If you’re going to schedule a safety project, you might as well use best practices.”
WE HAVE THE TOOLS TO MEET THE CHALLENGE OF ALL THIS DEVELOPMENT - June 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley’s ideal location and high quality of life have put it under extreme development pressure, but regional real estate experts said we have the tools to continue growing without ruining what makes the region special.
During the 2021 Greater Lehigh Valley Real Estate Outlook, experts laid out a market that has apartments selling faster than developers can build them, and industrial development continuing to expand the region’s place in the global economy of online shopping.
While it’s growing the Lehigh Valley’s stature nationwide, it’s also challenging the scenic character that makes the region attractive to people, businesses and visitors, said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley, who served as the keynote speaker for the hourlong virtual event.
Bradley said maintaining the region’s unique balance of growth and character can be done through a measured, managed approach that adds homes and businesses to development zones that promote walkable neighborhoods and jobs centers with multiple transportation options.
It can be done through the policies of FutureLV: The Regional Plan.
LANTA'S BIG MOVE TO ALTERNATIVE FUELS - June 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone whose daily commute includes driving behind a mass transit bus has had that less-than-pleasant experience of the black smoke from the tailpipe wafting across their windshield.
Well, not anymore. At least not in the Lehigh Valley.
The Lehigh and Northampton Transit Authority (LANTA) has retired its last fully diesel bus, completing a conversion of its entire 84-bus fleet to alternative fuels, and giving LANTA Pennsylvania’s largest fleet of compressed natural gas (CNG) buses.
It’s a transition that’s been 11 years in the making, but now as transit operations across the nation make the move away from air polluting diesel fuel, LANTA. It gives LANTA 57 CNG buses and 27 hybrid diesel-electric buses. Before the transition began, LANTA buses ran primarily on diesel, but it decommissioned its last two fully diesel buses in March.
“CNG is cleaner burning than diesel, and it’s cheaper and more stable, in terms of pricing,” said LANTA Executive Director Owen O’Neil. “Being able to convert to CNG so quickly has given us the largest CNG fleet in the state.”
APRIL/MAY 2021
WE HAVE A MONUMENTAL HOUSING SHORTAGE, BUT WE CAN OVERCOME IT - April 22, 2021 Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
The Lehigh Valley doesn’t have nearly enough homes to handle the growing demand of people who want to come here, and we’re way short of housing at the right prices for the people who already live here.
That’s the short explanation behind the growing pressure in our current housing market. The long answer is a lot more complicated, and unfortunately, not great news for homebuyers or renters at any price point.
Anyone who’s been paying attention probably has noticed that homes here are frequently selling within hours of going on the market, and often at well above asking price. Some buyers are so desperate to have their bids accepted that they’re paying cash and waiving home inspections, only to find later they need to spend significant money to make after-the-sale repairs. After several years of modest price increases, and a wait-and-see building approach by Great Recession-weary developers, our inventory of available housing for both sale and rent is at the lowest level since 2005, according to the LVPC’s recently released Housing Market Report.
And let’s add one more factor we believe is happening because of the pandemic. For decades, thousands of people who work in New York and New Jersey have moved here for our quality of life. They’ve essentially agreed to endure as much as a 90-minute commute for more land and a bigger home in a beautiful region where a monthly parking space doesn’t cost more than a car payment. This migration of new residents has made the Lehigh Valley one of Pennsylvania’s fastest-growing regions.
WE ARE IN ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT BOOM. IT ISN'T LIKE THOSE BEFORE - March 12, 2021 Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Lehigh Valley development powered through 2020 as though the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t happening with more new homes than we’ve seen in a decade, even as the flow of taller, more automated warehouses kept coming.
It may well be a sign that this region is at the beginning of another building boom, but this one is going to be different and we have a chance to make sure it’s what we want.
Of course, this region’s place at the heart of our exploding online shopping compulsion meant that new warehouse proposals continued their six-year unprecedented run, but the real driver of 2020 development is new home proposals. Fresh off the slowest home-building decade in the Lehigh Valley in at least 80 years, developers proposed 5,159 new homes. And the 1,909 homes approved for construction easily make 2020 the busiest home approval year since before the Great Recession began in 2007, according to “BuildLV Annual Development Report,” released in February.
After an uncertain decade in which investors took a wait-and-see approach, it’s as though developers are determined to make up for lost time — and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. With inventory so low, our data shows that the median sales price of a home went up $25,000 in 2020. That’s equivalent to the amount of the past six years combined, and that will continue until more homes are put into the market.
MANY ARE CLOSED OUT OF HEATED LEHIGH VALLEY HOUSING MARKET - May 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Housing prices are spiking across the Lehigh Valley, while demand for new homes outstrips how quickly developers can build them, even as more than a third of all households in the region struggle to pay their rent or mortgage.
A Regional Housing Market Report released by the LVPC shows a Lehigh Valley in which an overheated housing market is fueling intense competition for limited available homes, exacerbating a regionwide shift from homeownership to renting.
In 2020 alone, home prices increased by $25,000—equaling the increase over the previous six years—pushing the median cost of a home in the Valley to $225,000.
“It’s a seller’s market, with people getting high prices because inventory is very low,” said LVPC Chief Community Planner Samantha Smith, who co-authored the Market Report with Senior Community Planner Jill Seitz. “It’s very competitive, so prices are going up much faster than incomes, pricing an increasing number of people out of the market.”
The bi-annual Regional Housing Market Report includes an analysis based on the sale of every home in the region since 2015 and every available rental price, broken down for all 62 municipalities and 17 school districts. It identifies trends developed over the past six years and includes an interactive Geographic Information System (GIS) map that tracks median prices for every type of home and rental in every Lehigh Valley neighborhood.
LVPC WINS STATEWIDE INNOVATION AWARD FOR FUTURELV - May 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) is receiving the Governor’s Award for Local Government Excellence, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) Secretary Dennis Davin announced earlier this month.
The LVPC’s award is for creation and implementation of FutureLV: The Regional Plan, in the category of Innovative Planning and Sound Land Use Practices, and was among ten communities, five organizations and eight individuals statewide to win the awards issued by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration.
Davin also cited the LVPC’s work with helping Allentown School District establish connectivity for thousands of students during the Pandemic, and for developing an online Eviction and Foreclosure Risk Tool designed to identify the areas of the region where families are struggling to pay their rent or mortgages.
Other winners from the Lehigh Valley included Northampton County, Fountain Hill Borough, Plainfield Township, South Whitehall Township and LVPC Commissioner Kathy Rader.
LVPC'S BRADLEY APPOINTED TO STATEWIDE TRANSPORTATION FUNDING COMMISSION - May 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania is looking to find new transportation revenue that can offset a gas tax that is expected to become increasingly unreliable in maintaining the nation’s road, bridge and trail system.
Gov. Tom Wolf in March created a task force of community leaders and transportation experts, including LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley, to study how Pennsylvania can find new revenues to not only replace the gas tax, but enhance a transportation infrastructure that’s been underfunded for decades.
“Phasing out the burdensome gas tax, coupled with seeking long-term reliable funding solutions that will keep pace with our infrastructure needs, deserves a close examination,” Wolf said. “Forming this bipartisan commission will bring multiple, bipartisan voices to the table to ensure that we can examine reliable, sustainable revenue solutions to address both near-term and long-term funding needs.”
Bradley represents the Lehigh Valley and all of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations statewide on the Transportation Revenue Options Commission, which is tasked with analyzing the issue and submitting a report by August 1. Senator Patrick Browne, Appropriations Chair representing Lehigh County’s 16th District is also a member of the Transportation Revenue Options Commission.
“This is an issue I’m passionate about because the condition of our transportation infrastructure touches the lives of everyone and is fundamental to our economy. It’s one of the most important issues we’ll face this year,” Bradley said. “I’m honored that the governor has asked me to help find options that can help our Lehigh Valley communities, as well as communities across the state.”
NATIONAL WORK ZONE AWARENESS WEEK: DRIVE SAFE. WORK SAFE. SAVE LIVES. - May 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
You’re driving home from work when you see a construction zone ahead and immediately think “this is going to slow me down.”
Perfect, according to transportation officials, because that’s what you should expect.
April 26-30 is National Work Zone Awareness Week, calling attention to the many people who have died in work zone accidents and raising awareness that the roadway construction season has begun.
The message is simple. Slowing down though work zones not only saves lives, but it’s the law.
Surrounded by first-responder vehicles and equipment, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Price, deputy commissioner of operations for the Pennsylvania State Police, kicked off Work Zone Awareness Week by acknowledging the dangers faced by first responders while providing roadside assistance. Pennsylvania’s theme this year is “Drive Safe. Work Safe. Save Lives.”
“In addition to today being the beginning of Work Zone Awareness week, changes made to Pennsylvania's Move Over Law go into effect tomorrow,” Lieutenant Colonel Price explained Monday. “Last year, 55 state police vehicles were struck while troopers were responding to traffic stops, disabled motorists, or crash scenes. The goal of the Move Over Law is to prevent these dangerous situations.”
MARCH 2021
'GOING GREEN' IS AN INVESTMENT IN OUR ECONOMY - February 4, 2021 Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
The term “going green” has become synonymous with spending to decrease air pollution, clean our water, beautify our landscapes and ultimately improve our mental and physical health.
This pandemic has only reaffirmed the value of individual and community health.
In the Lehigh Valley, green is our “quality of life” and our quality of life is not some amorphous thing that no one understands. It’s our buildings, jobs, people, rivers, creeks, forests, parks, farmlands, schools … the sum of our parts. It will remain great if we treat it like we treat it like our favorite people — precious and irreplaceable.
My point is, it should be thought of as an investment — not an expense — critical to our personal and public safety. And a lot of companies, governments and individuals agree.
There’s a reason why the market value of electric car maker Tesla has bulged to nearly $800 billion. It’s because the company made an early investment that is paying off big today, as the world’s inevitable transition from fossil fuel to electric vehicles picks up speed. As a result, Tesla is now worth four times the value of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, combined.
TRANSFORMATIVE TALK: COVID-19 VACCINE ROLLOUT - March 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
People are overwhelming webpages and phone lines to get a vaccine in the Lehigh Valley, with some flying in from as far as Florida to get a shot, but this region’s hospital and health bureau networks put it in a better position than most in the state as the vaccine rollout out accelerates.
That was a message from the region’s foremost health and COVID-19 vaccine experts during the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s first Transformation Talks expert roundtable, hosted by the LVPC on February 13 as part of new series designed to bring together community leaders to tackle the most important and timely issues of the region. The Talks are held online and open to the public.
The full video is available HERE.
During a 90-minute session that included instruction on how, where and who should get the vaccine, government and community experts offered the people of the Lehigh Valley two pieces of advice: be patient, and continue to be careful, even after getting vaccinated.
LVPC CELEBRATING 60 YEARS OF GROWTH AND RESILIENCY - March 2021, Susan Rockwell, Senior Environmental Planner
The concept seems so simple now, but the idea that planning would be more effective if we did it as a single region, rather than two separate counties, was actually rather innovative in 1961.
That concept would soon yield Pennsylvania’s first metropolitan area plan and helped guide one of the state’s most consistently growing regions through seminal changes that have included Route 22 becoming one of the state’s busiest roads, two housing booms that reshaped the region and most recently the Lehigh Valley’s place as one of the nation’s most important freight corridors.
As the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission celebrates its 60th anniversary, a look back over time reveals an extraordinary history of planning accomplishments, strengthened by regional and local collaboration and public engagement. Since its formation, the LVPC’s primary focus has been promoting the health, safety and general welfare of the region’s residents through its planning efforts and establishing relationships with local communities and stakeholders.
This regional effort didn’t happen all at once. In January 1961, Lehigh and Northampton counties established individual county planning commissions, consisting of nine members each, for the purpose of preparing their county comprehensive plans. As each commission began to develop a planning program, the counties recognized that it would be ineffective to plan independently, leading to the formation of the Joint Planning Commission (JPC) of Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the summer of 1961.
NEW LVPC REPORT DETAILS NEW DATA, NEW ANALYSIS AND NEW ACCOMPLISHMENTS -
March 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The COVID-19 Pandemic forced the Lehigh Valley to do what it does best: adapt, work together, evolve. The year 2020 was like no other year and for that the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Lehigh Valley Transportation Study have produced a document like no other.
With its detailed look at the year in development, it serves as our latest edition of the popular BuildLV: Annual Development Report.
With its in-depth review of the data, public engagement, plan reviews, mountains of analysis and much more, it serves as our annual report not only of what we’re doing, but where this growing region is headed.
And with its timing in 2021, it serves as a 60th Anniversary celebration for the LVPC, with a look at how the past six decades helped prepare the Lehigh Valley to be a major player in this new global economy.
“It’s an amazing statement of what’s been accomplished, not only by the LVPC and LVTS, but by the Lehigh Valley as a region – in the middle of a Pandemic, no less,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “I’m proud of what’s been accomplished and encouraged by what’s ahead.”
This report also serves as the annual regional and multi-municipal activities report, as required by under Article XI, Section 1104 (a) (4) of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code.
The LVPC/LVTS Activity Report is available HERE.
FEBRUARY 2021
LEHIGH AND NORTHAMPTON COUNTIES SET GREEN EXAMPLE - February 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh and Northampton county officials are taking an environment-friendly view of building projects and they’re hoping municipal planners and developers follow their lead.
Lehigh County is about to embark on an expansion at the county-run Cedarbrook Senior Care and Rehab that will feature a green roof, rain gardens and native landscaping, while Northampton County forges a “Green Initiatives” plan that includes investing $1.5 million to build a small, hydroelectric power generator at the Lehigh Canal near Hugh Moore Park in Easton.
Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure’s “Green Initiative” plan is focused on preserving farmland and open space, but that concept of saving the environment also extends to all county decisions, said Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure.
COMMUNITIES MUST EVOLVE WITH OUR CHALLENGING WAREHOUSING MARKET - February 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
All warehouses are not created equal and the same is true for their impact on the community.
As the age of online shopping and overnight delivery ushers in a new breed of warehouses, it’s important that municipalities update their planning and zoning regulations to differentiate among the rapidly expanding types of warehousing that help make the Lehigh Valley one of the nation’s fastest-growing corridors for freight and goods movement.
It has never been more important, as companies in the region propose taller, automated warehouses designed to get product in an out more quickly, prompting even the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE) to recently update its traffic projections by adding several new categories of warehouses. The ITE has for four decades been the international authority on projecting traffic generated by types of development.
“Zoning that says ‘warehouses go here’ doesn’t work anymore because it’s not specific enough,” said Brian Hite, LVPC Senior Planning Technician. “We now have six different warehousing designations with vastly different impacts on the community.”
For example, a standard 500,000-square-foot warehouse – not uncommon the Lehigh Valley – can be expected to generate about 870 vehicle trips per day, with about 300 of them being trucks or tractor-trailers, according to the latest ITE Manual.
Yet, a high cube fulfillment and sorting warehouse of the same square footage can expect a lot more vehicles at 3,220 vehicles a day, but far fewer trucks at 95.
Conversely, a 500,000-square-foot high cube cold storage warehouse can expect fewer total trips at 1,060, but with nearly quadruple the truck traffic at 375.
High cube is the new trend warehouses that can be as tall as 18 stories – four to five times the height of a traditional warehouse - with intricate racking systems that are filled and unfilled by robotic forklifts that keep traffic moving through the facility quickly.
ZEBROWSKI RE-ELECTED LVPC CHAIR - February 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The year will be new, but the leadership will remain the same in 2021 at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, after Greg Zebrowski was re-elected January 28 by the 37-member board to serve a second year as Chair. Zebrowski is the 35th Chairman since Lehigh and Northampton counties formed the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to put a greater emphasis on planning regionally 60 years ago.
The chairperson at the LVPC can serve a maximum of two consecutive years.
Zebrowski said he will continue his focus of implementing the policies of FutureLV: The Regional Plan, managing growth and encouraging investors and corporations to include more environmentally sensitive development, more green infrastructure and more efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Zebrowski, of Bethlehem, formerly served on Northampton County Council, the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. board and Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority board. He was appointed to the LVPC board in 2018 and became Vice Chair in 2019, before being elected Chair in 2020.
Also re-elected by the full board was the LVPC’s 40th Vice Chair, Steven Glickman, an architect from Bethlehem. Pam Pearson, a Crayola team member and Tatamy Borough Councilwoman who became the board’s 27th Treasurer in 2020, was also re-elected for a second year.
The new officers will help mark the LVPC’s 60th anniversary year in its mission to promote the health, safety and welfare of the more than 674,000 residents of Lehigh and Northampton counties.
LVPC BOARD SAYS GOODBYE TO WRIGHT - February 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC Board Thursday said goodbye to one long-time board member and welcome one new member.
LVPC Chairman Greg Zebrowski thanked former board member Donna Wright for her commitment and dedication to the board since she was appointed in 2009, particularly for her focus on advocating for the preservation of farmland.
“I’d like to thank Donna Wright for her 11 years of service as a Planning Commissioner,” Zebrowski said. “Thank you, Donna for giving so much of your knowledge and time to the LVPC and our community. We appreciate the way you continue to champion the issues of agricultural in the community beyond your service to LVPC, and we look forward to continuing a long partnership and friendship going forward.”
Wright, who works as a Farmland Preservation Specialist for Lehigh County, said she was grateful to be able to have an impact on the board and hoped for a chance to serve again when she has more time to dedicate to it.
For the past six years, Wright has been Comprehensive Planning Committee Chair and an Executive Committee member.
The board also welcomed new member Andrew Elliott. Elliott was appointed this month to be a citizen representative for Northampton County. Elliott, 37, lives in Palmer Township with his wife and two sons.
JANUARY 2021
LIMITING FORECLOSURE AND EVICTION RISK WILL TAKE MORE THAN A VACCINE - January 1, 2021 Morning Call Column, Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director
Countries around the world have begun to distribute the vaccines that will finally bring this terrible pandemic under control and allow many of us to return to some measure of normalcy.
However, this difficult time has revealed just how many of our friends, neighbors and families were struggling even before the pandemic hit, and it’s clear that the pain of its impact will not disappear with our ability to become immune from COVID-19.
This reality became heartbreakingly evident as we developed our Foreclosure and Eviction Risk tool in August. The interactive map at lvpc.org includes data for every census block in the region showing more than half of all Lehigh Valley renters and a quarter of homeowners are paying more than 30% of their gross income for housing — a condition known as being cost-burdened.
It was particularly shocking to see that people struggling to pay their rent and mortgage are not isolated in our cities or low-income neighborhoods, but in every corner of the region, including our suburbs and rural areas.
The idea of mapping this out was to isolate the neighborhoods where resources — whether they be federal, state or local — would be most needed.
The clear view of so many in need made us want to do more.
AT-RISK JOBS NOW PART OF EVICTION RISK TOOL - January 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Even as more than 80,000 Lehigh Valley households struggle to handle their housing costs, nearly 78,000 residents are in jobs that are threatened by the COVID-19 Pandemic, according to an analysis by the LVPC and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
That data is contained in the LVPC’s Foreclosure and Eviction Risk tool, found at https://lvpc.org/data-lv-housing.html. The interactive data map for every U.S. Census block in the region shows that more than half of all Valley renters and a quarter of homeowners are paying more than 30% of their gross income for housing – a condition known as being cost-burdened. In addition, it shows that 27% of all workers are employed in jobs that are now threatened by the pandemic.
The two conditions together paint a picture of difficult months ahead for families struggling to weather pandemic impacts that are only expected to grow as federal moratoriums against evictions are scheduled to expire at the close of the year.
ALTERNATIVE FUELS ARE ON THE MOVE - January 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Maybe you’ve never considered buying a Prius and perhaps you think a Tesla is out of your price range, but know this: the future of transportation is not by fossil fuels.
That’s why General Motors is spending more than half its research and development investment on electric vehicles, why Tesla is the nation’s sixth largest company with 15 times the value of Ford, and why Mack Trucks will begin production in Lower Macungie Township of the first fully electric refuse trucks in early 2021.
That future is playing out across Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley as state and local leaders prepare to build the infrastructure needed to handle the transition and offer incentives to get people to buy into it, state Department of Environmental Protection Energy Program Specialist Colton Brown said during two presentations before the LVPC’s Freight Advisory and Environmental Planning committees.
ONLINE REVAMP SIMPLIFIES SALDO APPLICATIONS - January 2021, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
New form, easier access, quicker turnaround potential, with the same fees.
The revamped LVPC Subdivision and Land Development Application now enables people to use an online form that guides them through the sometimes-complicated process of applying for new development projects or changes to existing ones.
The new Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance (SALDO) webpage will give developers, engineers, architects or municipal officials access to an online tool that not only gathers their relevant information, but automatically calculates the required application fees.
Applicants still have to deliver the completed application to the LVPC office with their submittal package, but the form is downloadable so that it can be easily printed after its completed.
Under the current process, necessary information is often missing or incomplete on initial submittals, prompting staff requests for more information that can sometimes cause inconvenience for the applicants and delay the submission process.
The new process is the first major revamp in more than two decades. The new application process is effective January 1. The site will be available at https://www.lvpc.org/subdivision---land-development.html.
UPDATE TO LVPC EQUITY DATA MAKES ANALYSIS EASIER - January 2021,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
When the LVPC first released its Equity Analysis in 2018, it was one of the first in the nation, and when all that data showing who does and doesn’t have access to a high quality of life in neighborhoods across the Lehigh Valley was updated in June, it drew the attention of people inside and outside of the region.
But it also raised a seemingly simple question.
“This data is important, but how can we make it usable for everyone?” said LVPC Executive Becky Bradley.
Now, just a few months after the 2020 Equity Analysis was released, it has been updated again to make it easier for government agencies, non-profit providers and even private residents to gauge which demographic groups have access to education, housing, transportation and employment in communities across the region – and perhaps more importantly, which do not have access.
“It is now an analysis tool that’s a lot more user-friendly because it helps anyone who wants to use it to visualize what’s happening in every neighborhood,” said LVPC Senior Community Planner Jill Seitz, who authored the 2018 Equity Analysis and co-authored its two 2020 updates with Chief Community Planner Samantha Smith.
The full Equity Analysis can be found at https://lvpc.org/datalv.html#equity
2020
DECEMBER 2020
BIG WAREHOUSE ROBOTS ARE COMING. PREPARE NOW - The Morning Call, November 25, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
The Lehigh Valley has a love-hate relationship with its warehouse industry. We love the two-day delivery of our favorite consumer goods and the 32,000 jobs it’s helped create here, while simultaneously hating the truck traffic and lower air quality it brings and the farmland it has churned up.
Now, there’s a new, potentially even more polarizing, warehouse trend, but I’m hoping that if we start preparing before they’re built, we can get this relationship off to a better start.
High cube and automated warehouses are pounding at the doors with a size and look we haven’t seen before. Unlike most of the nearly 100 million square feet of warehouse space we have now, these are taller — some as high as 140 feet — and intensely automated. They have the potential for positive and adverse impacts to our communities, but if we do this right — and do it now — we have a chance to encourage the positive and mitigate the adverse.
For that reason, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has worked for more than two months creating a community guide, designed to give municipalities the knowledge, know-how and choices they need to be ready when this emerging trend comes knocking. You can find the document, in PDF or interactive online form, at lvpc.org/c-guides---model-regs.html.
LVPC DEVELOPS COMMUNITY GUIDE TO PREPARE THE REGION FOR THE TALL WAREHOUSE BOOM - December 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Warehouses the height of downtown skyscrapers are being proposed for the Lehigh Valley, so the LVPC has worked for more than two months to create a community guide to help municipalities handle them.
With high cube warehousing emerging worldwide as a new land use, the LVPC’s High Cube and Automated Warehousing Community Guide is the first in the nation designed to help our 62 municipalities capitalize on their potential advantages, while mitigating the negative impacts, by controlling where these massive structures are built and how they look.
“This is an emerging trend that we want to help our municipalities get out ahead of because we know it’s going to have a tremendous impact on the character of our communities, from their viewsheds to their transportation networks to their local economies,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “If we prepare, and do it soon, we can bring about the best possible outcome. We’re committed to supporting our municipal partners in managing our growth and development.”
PENNSYLVANIA GREENHOUSE GAS PLANS OPEN FOR COMMENT - December 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania is proposing to join a ten-state initiative to reduce greenhouse gases by capping emissions from electric power producers, selling credits for power plant emissions and then reinvesting that money.
Fresh off an approval by the state’s Environmental Quality Board, Pennsylvania is advancing plans to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), enabling the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to install a cap-and-invest system designed to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the nation’s four-largest statewide discharger of CO2.
The new regulations have been years in the making, and still have several hurdles to clear, but the Environmental Quality Board’s approval has triggered a public comment period through January 14, that would lead to new regulations that could go into effect as early as 2022.
NOVEMBER 2020
LEHIGH VALLEY LEADERS WORKING TO KEEP PEOPLE IN THEIR HOMES AMID LOOMING CHALLENGES - The Morning Call, October 22, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
This place we call home is a lot cooler than most people here realize. We’ve got beautiful landscapes, rolling farm fields, an amazing array of historic sites and natural assets that just can’t be found in the big metros. We’re close enough to be able to experience what the world’s best regions have to offer, while being just far enough away to be unique.
The Lehigh Valley’s biggest flaw might be that we’re simply too modest. We don’t realize our own value. Think Neiman Marcus and Aston Martin. We’re a Birkin Bag, baby! It’s time we realize our real worth and identity, particularly when it comes to our undeveloped land. Limited, exclusive, iconic and expensive.
Land is dwindling, with a growing number of warehouses making the Lehigh Valley a national epicenter for consumer goods distribution. Our warehouse and distribution industry employs nearly 32,000 people. Its physical inventory now consists of 100 million square feet — nearly doubling in the past decade — according to 2019 and 2020 reports by CBRE, a national commercial real estate services and investment firm.
GALA 2020 CELEBRATES - ALL OF US - November 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More than 40 videos taken at some of the region’s most scenic places. The willingness of all 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities to work together. A community organization of kids who represent a bright future.
And, of course, a global pandemic that forced us to do this virtually for the first time ever.
Those were just some of the ingredients that went into the 2020 Lehigh Valley Gala + Awards. It was like no event we’ve done before as community leaders that included Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong and Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure gathered -- virtually, of course – to celebrate a region that’s worked together not only to get through this difficult year, but to make the Lehigh Valley one of the region’s best places to live.
The Gala, which streamed on YouTube October 13 and has since received hundreds of views, culminated in the presentation of the LVPC’s first-ever FutureLV Heroes Award, given to individuals or groups who exemplify the policies of FutureLV: The Regional Plan.
FEDERAL ACTION KEEPS LEHIGH VALLEY TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS MOVING -
November 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley just embarked on a new four-year, $452 million program to maintain and enhance the region’s transportation network, but the plan only works if the Federal Highway Administration sends the money to pay for it.
Worries the transportation program could grind to a halt were alleviated last month when Congress approved a one-year extension to the Fixing America’s Service Transportation Act (FASTAct). That carries the money through September 30, 2021, enabling regional planners to forge ahead with road, bridges, trail and transit projects throughout the region.
The continuing resolution passed in October puts $10.4 Billion into the Highway Trust Fund and $3.6 Billion into the Mass Transit Account. Had Congress not acted, the money in both funds would have run out sometime next spring.
Roughly 80% of all the money spent on Lehigh Valley transportation projects comes from federal sources.
OCTOBER 2021
LEHIGH VALLEY LEADERS WORKING TO KEEP PEOPLE IN THEIR HOMES AMID LOOMING CHALLENGES - The Morning Call, September 17, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
The Lehigh Valley has pulled together over the past six months to fight a global pandemic, historic unemployment and unsettling business closures, but I’m afraid our biggest fight may be just around the corner. I fear we are heading for serious housing challenges.
Our analysis shows that more than 70,000 households across the region are at risk of not being able to pay their rent or mortgage, but I find hope in the efforts of government and community leaders to partner with the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia to identify the need so they can direct resources where it counts the most.
During our virtual Workshop LV: Housing session [in September], government leaders from Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton and the counties gathered to discuss data released by the LVPC and Federal Reserve Bank, and ways they can work together to help keep people in their homes.
According to the LVPC analysis, more than half of all renters and more than a quarter of homeowners in the Lehigh Valley are financially burdened by housing costs, and many are at greater risk of losing their homes or apartments since Pennsylvania’s moratorium on evictions and foreclosures was lifted Aug. 31. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a federal moratorium through the end of their year that many renters may be eligible for, but even for those who are, the moratoriums will eventually end and landlords and banks will be demanding to be paid.
GOVERNMENT LEADERS SAY TARGET THE COVID-19 CRISIS NOW WHILE CREATING MORE ATTAINABLE HOUSING LONG-TERM - October 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Presented with the data that the Covid-19 Pandemic has put thousands of renters and homeowners at risk of losing their homes, while many others risk losing their jobs, Lehigh Valley city and county leaders spoke in unison about the answer: more attainable housing across the region.
During a September 10 LVPC-hosted WorkshopLV: Housing meeting in which the LVPC and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released new housing and jobs data, some of the region’s city and county leaders called for the need to first get aid to the renters, homeowners and workers who need it now, but then continue the long-term effort to create more attainable housing for people across the Lehigh Valley.
UPPER MOUNT BETHEL TAKES 2ND PLACE FOR STATEWIDE MOUSETRAP AWARD - October 2020
Thanks to the Lehigh Valley’s continued recognition in Pennsylvania’s Build a Better Mousetrap Competition, creative, ingenious and inventive are words consistently attributed to Pennsylvania municipal road crews.
Upper Mount Bethel placed second in Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Mousetrap competition this year, the sixth time in eight years in which a Lehigh Valley municipal crew has been commended for its inventive initiatives.
Upper Mount Bethel’s signpost driver placed second out of 14 entries across ten municipalities in Pennsylvania. It started when Upper Mount Bethel road crew member Troy Bartron’s co-workers came to him and said they needed a longer signpost driver that wouldn’t deteriorate posts.
“Every time we ruin a post, we waste taxpayer money. Once they’re bent and go in the ground, they don’t meet specifications,” said Bartron about the previous driver’s unimaginative design.
PANDEMIC TRAFFIC IS NO LONGER A THING - October 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Yes, lots of people are still working from home, and yes many schools and businesses are only partially open, but no our roads are not free of congestion.
The latest LVPC and Pennsylvania Department of Transportation traffic counts for some of the Lehigh Valley’s busiest roadways show that vehicle counts have nearly returned to pre-COVID-19 levels.
Overall, traffic along sections of Route 33, Route 309 and Interstate 78 were collectively down less than 4% compared to compared to early March, just before the pandemic closures began. That can be blamed in large part to an increase in truck traffic this year that’s seen the number of trucks along those major arteries not only returning to pre-pandemic levels, but surpassing early March totals by more than 8%, according to the latest traffic counts, taken September 29.
Below is the link to the charts showing total vehicle and truck traffic each week since early March. Note the major dip August 4 was caused when the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaias dumped roughly five inches of rain on the region:
SEPTEMBER 2020
LVPC RELEASES EVICTION AND FORECLOSURE RISK TOOL - September 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More than half of all renters and more than a quarter of all homeowners in the Lehigh Valley are burdened by their housing costs, according to a Foreclosure and Eviction Risk tool developed by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission at the request of city mayors and county officials.
The data-based tool was created to help county, municipal and community leaders identify the neighborhoods where housing issues are most likely to emerge now that pandemic-induced moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures are being lifted.
The tool’s impact has led to a partnership between the LVPC and Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in which LVPC housing data will be combined with the Federal Reserve’s economic data to identify communities with people most at risk of losing their homes or jobs.
THE LEHIGH VALLEY WILL RISE AFTER THE PANDEMIC TO FACE CHALLENGES AND CAPTURE NEW OPPORTUNITIES - The Morning Call, August 5, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into its sixth month, Lehigh Valley municipal leaders say their biggest challenges are declining revenues, the loss of community businesses, changing state and federal policies and the fear that another infection spike could be just around the corner.
In a brief survey conducted by the LVPC, elected, appointed and municipal staff representing 50 of the 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities voiced the many challenges they face as COVID-19 impacts families, businesses and municipal operations across the region.
The survey was sent to every municipality in advance of the LVPC-led virtual Lehigh Valley General Assembly meeting held June 30 to give municipal leaders a chance to discuss and coordinate on planning and government issues.
“We know that our municipal partners are facing challenges that no one has experienced before,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We wanted to get everyone in one room, at least virtually, to take stock in what our communities are dealing with so we can tackle these issues together. The survey was part getting a feel for what the biggest needs are.”
PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT REMAINED BUSY THROUGH THE PANDEMIC - September 2020,
Matt Assad, Managing EditorDevelopers proposed more than 2,000 new homes and nearly 4 million square feet of non-residential space in the first half of 2020, extending the region’s busy development period into a seventh consecutive year.
Despite a pandemic that slowed the economy and shuttered many business, investors continued to show confidence in the region, filing 196 plans on more than 1,800 acres of property from January through June, according to the LVPC’s BuildLV Subdivision and Land Development Six-Month Report.
“More than 2,000 new housing units in the first six months is a big number, and nearly half of them are single-family detached, which is a housing type that took a break for several years after the recession,” Becky Bradley, LVPC Executive Director, told commission members. “You can see that despite everything, it has been absolutely hopping.”
WHEN THE WEATHER HAS IMPACT SIMILAR TO A PANDEMIC - September 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC has since March been closely following how the COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted traffic across the region, but August offered an interesting example of another factor that can have just as much impact on how many people travel our roadways.
The weather.
The latest LVPC and PennDOT traffic counts showed the Lehigh Valley continuing its path to normalcy as workers and consumers gradually return to the road in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdown orders. By early August, traffic declines of more than 40% during the height of the Pandemic were less than 5% below pre-pandemic levels.
But then came August 4. That day traffic at key points along Interstate 78, Route 33 and Route 309 fell 25%.
Why? That was the day remnants of Hurricane Isaias dumped 4.92 inches of rain in less than 15 hours, as measured at the Lehigh Valley International Airport. Just like that, nearly 60,000 vehicles that traveled along those key arteries the week before, didn’t take to the roads.
AUGUST 2020
LEHIGH VALLEY CONTINUES STEADY POPULATION GROWTH - August 2020,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley added nearly 1,700 new residents in 2019 to bring the total population to 674,232, continuing the kind of steady growth that few other regions in Pennsylvania have enjoyed.
However, those estimates by the U. S. Census Bureau, show the region has gained 27,371 people since the 2010 Census. That average gain of roughly 3,000 new residents a year – while still robust – sets the 2010-2020 decade on pace to log the slowest growth since the 1970s.
“Population growth fluctuations are often cyclical, so it’s not surprising that we had a slowdown right after a decade in which growth was higher than normal, particularly when you consider the decade started with a recession that halted most home building,” said Jill Seitz, LVPC Senior Community Planner.
FALLING REVENUES AND CLOSING BUSINESSES CHALLENGE LEHIGH VALLEY MUNICIPAL LEADERS - August 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches into its sixth month, Lehigh Valley municipal leaders say their biggest challenges are declining revenues, the loss of community businesses, changing state and federal policies and the fear that another infection spike could be just around the corner.
In a brief survey conducted by the LVPC, elected, appointed and municipal staff representing 50 of the 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities voiced the many challenges they face as COVID-19 impacts families, businesses and municipal operations across the region.
The survey was sent to every municipality in advance of the LVPC-led virtual Lehigh Valley General Assembly meeting held June 30 to give municipal leaders a chance to discuss and coordinate on planning and government issues.
“We know that our municipal partners are facing challenges that no one has experienced before,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We wanted to get everyone in one room, at least virtually, to take stock in what our communities are dealing with so we can tackle these issues together. The survey was part getting a feel for what the biggest needs are.”
COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU: CENSUS WORKERS -
August 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If you haven’t filled out the Census yet, here’s some incentive for you: It’s the best way to keep a Census Enumerator from your doorstep next week.
After a three-month delay due to COVID-19, more than 2,000 Census workers will hit Lehigh Valley areas streets beginning August 11 to track down anyone who has yet to fill out the 10-question survey that’s done once every decade. They’ll be knocking and if you don’t answer, they may even knock on your neighbor’s door to find you.
It’s all part of getting an accurate count by October 31. Getting fully counted is key for the Lehigh Valley because it determines how much funding the region gets for things like education, roads, healthcare and more. It also determines how much Congressional representation Pennsylvania has in Washington D.C.
JULY 2020
LVPC MORNING CALL COLUMN: WE MUST FACE OUR RACE AND ETHNIC DISPARITIES -
July 2, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
As the collective call for justice against police brutality washes across America, it’s important that the Lehigh Valley not fall into the trap of believing that systemic racism is only happening in big cities like Minneapolis, Seattle and Atlanta.
While racial disparities have diminished since the 1969 week-long walkout of Black students and the 1971 ‘Race Riot’ at Easton Area High School, there is still much work to be done in our community.
Despite strides made toward equity, recent protests in the Lehigh Valley recognize that the region is not exempt from institutional injustices against people of color.
This is not a matter of opinion or debate. It plays out clearly in the data from the LVPC’s latest Equity Analysis of the Lehigh Valley, which uses 14 key data points to measure a person’s access to the necessities that determine quality of life — housing, employment, education and transportation. The data shows that Non-White — and Blacks and Hispanics or Latinos in particular — make less money, are less likely to own a home and have far less access to education and transportation.
LVPC'S EQUITY ANALYSIS SHOWS RACIAL AND ETHNIC DISPARITY ACROSS THE REGION -
July 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Blacks and Hispanics or Latinos in the Lehigh Valley have far less access to wealth, housing, transportation or education than White residents, according to an LVPC Equity Analysis released June 25.
The statistical analysis shows that while Blacks don’t benefit from the same access to opportunity as Whites, residents identifying as Hispanics or Latinos, who now make up 19% of the Region’s population, by far have the least access to the necessities that are vital in determining quality of life.
The analysis, performed by LVPC Senior Community Planner Jillian Seitz and Chief Community Planner Samantha Smith, used 14 key data points that determine access to jobs, housing, transportation and education and analyzed them for all of the region’s 145 census tracts. It serves as an update of the Region’s first equity analysis, done by the LVPC in 2018.
PANDEMIC'S JOB RECOVERY WILL TAKE YEARS - July 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley entered June with the worst unemployment numbers in three decades, but as the region – and nation – open from its COVID-19 shutdown, the job market will bounce back, right?
Well, not exactly. The rate did improve as July approached, but according to experts, it will take years to recover from the damage caused over the past three months, and in the meantime some people may never return to work, others will have to retrain, and ultimately, a Lehigh Valley economy that was humming at ‘full employment’ will never be quite the same.
IS THE PANDEMIC IMPROVING OUR TRANSPORTATION FUTURE? -
July 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
By this time next year, the deficit in the gas tax Pennsylvania uses to fund transportation projects could hit $800 million.
Now, multiply that by 50 states, add in the fact that the national infrastructure funding law expires in September and the picture of how the Lehigh Valley – or any other region – is going to maintain its transportation network isn’t so clear, according to a panel of experts who participated in a June 24 LVPC Webinar on Transportation Funding.
Gas tax revenues are down, the pandemic continues and we’re in the midst of a politically charged Presidential election, but panelists PennDOT Deputy Secretary for Planning Larry Shifflet, National Association of Regional Councils (NARC) Deputy Director Erich Zimmermann and LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley all found reason for hope – sort of – during the more than hourlong webcast.
JUNE 2020
LVPC MORNING CALL COLUMN: OUR PATH OUT OF THE PANDEMIC SHOULD INCLUDE INFRASTRUCTURE RENEWAL - May 28, 2020, Becky Bradley, Executive Director
Over the next four years, more than $451 million will be invested in the Lehigh Valley’s transportation network. It’s not enough. Not even close.
This is no time to retrace the history of how we got here or to waste effort on trying to assign blame. We are in an unprecedented time in our country that is forcing us to pull together, to lean on each other and most of all, reprioritize the things that make America work.
It’s the right time to reinvest in our infrastructure.
As COVID-19 takes a terrible toll on our nation and the world, the health of our friends, families and neighbors will always be the top priority. That is undebatable, but even as that remains our primary focus, we now have an opportunity to begin addressing our infrastructure shortcomings.
THE LEHIGH VALLEY'S FIRST EVER BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN PLAN IS HERE -
June 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has a robust road and bridge network, more than 300 miles of trails and a public transit system that serves more than 5 million riders a year.
Transforming those components into a seamless transportation network for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and even drivers is key to the region becoming one of the nation’s most livable.
That’s the mission of the Walk/RollLV, the Lehigh Valley’s first ever active transportation masterplan. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission adopted Walk/Roll in April, and the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) Wednesday (June 3) followed with its approval of the 178-page blueprint for improving walking, biking and accessibility in the road, trail and transit system.
FOUR-YEAR PLAN INVESTS $452 MILLION IN TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS -
June 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Nearly $452 million will be invested in communities across the Lehigh Valley for road, bridge, trail, multimodal and transit projects over the next four years.
The first ever Lehigh Valley plan to include performance metrics continues key road and bridge projects along majors roadways like Routes 22 and 378, and advances improvement projects in dozens of communities, while putting a greater focus on making the region more welcoming to pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and people with disabilities.
The 2021-24 TIP is the first plan drafted under the new policies of FutureLV: The Regional Plan, which was adopted in late 2019, and the Walk/RollLV: Active Transportation Plan, which was finalized this month.
The plan includes $6.2 million for multi-use trails and bicycle projects and another $2.3 million for pedestrian and safe routes to schools projects.
MAY 2020
WALK/ROLL LV ALMOST TO THE FINISH LINE - May 2020, Matt Assad, Managining Editor
Fresh off its approval by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission last week, the region’s first ever bicycles, pedestrian and multimodal transportation master plan is racing toward the finish line.
After an 18-month open table process that included 250 contributors from across the Lehigh Valley, the Walk/RollLV: Active Transportation Plan will go for final approval before the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study Coordinating Committee at 9 am June 3.
In order to give organizers time to prepare their presentation to the LVTS, the May 27 Multimodal Working Group meeting is canceled.
THE FUTURE IS COMING SOONER THAN WE THOUGHT - May 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The race to build warehouses in the Lehigh Valley will re-energize, the retail slide will accelerate, more people will work from home, but none of that will mean the region’s busiest roadways will remain free of traffic.
Covid-19’s impact on the region will not end when the economy reopens or when a vaccine is developed, and the new normal may simply bring the region’s likely future about much sooner than expected, the LVPC’s Community Planning experts told people during a webinar examining the impact of Covid-19 on development.
“More and more people are switching to online shopping and grocery delivery and pickup — and they may not revert to their old habits when the pandemic ends,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley, during an online webinar attended by 38 people last week. “This will continue to fuel the development of warehouses, for better and for worse, and will accelerate the decline of shopping centers necessitating redevelopment of these “greyfields”. FutureLV: The Regional Plan predicted the retail center decline and has several policy directives to support reuse and redevelopment. We think it will happen more quickly now due to the pandemic.”
PA'S ACT 15 GUIDES PUBLIC BODIES THROUGH THE PANDEMIC - May 2020,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Covid-19 has left public bodies with a dilemma: How can they keep the public at a safe distance, while giving them the access that is their legal right?
Pennsylvania’s Act 15 bridges that divide, by allowing municipalities, planning commissions like the LVPC and other public organizations to safely conduct business, while keeping the public involved during the Covid-19 crisis.
The law enables municipalities to conduct public meetings electronically, eliminates the need for in-person contact, and pauses review and filing time limits that many municipalities have struggled to meet with their doors closed to the public and so many employees furloughed or working from home.
“This Covid-19 pandemic is certainly one of the largest disruptors of our time,” said LVPC Becky Bradley in opening a webinar on the new law. “We’re here today to talk about the unprecedented legislative response to local government and development.”
WHY THE LEHIGH VALLEY NEEDS YOU TO BE COUNTED IN THE 2020 CENSUS -
May 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If someone was willing to give you $2,093 for filling out a 12-question survey of routine queries like name, address and age, would you do it?
Well, that’s sort of what happens when you fill out the Census, because that count dictates how $26.7 billion -- $2,093 for every person in Pennsylvania -- will fund everything from roads to hospitals to schools to housing, according to a study by George Washington University. Getting undercounted means getting underfunded, as money that should be coming here goes elsewhere.
That’s one of the many factors that makes filling out the 2020 Census more important than ever.
Beyond that, accurate count data is vital in planning for the future, its effects how much say our region has in federal government policy, and it plays a role in whether people and businesses want to come here.
In other words, missing people means missing out on a lot.
THE LEHIGH VALLEY'S ESSENTIAL FREIGHT INDUSTRY - May 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
We’ve all been stuck on Route 22 and wondered “maybe if all these trucks weren’t out here, this wouldn’t be gridlock.”
Trucks, warehouses and freight have become a familiar target in a Lehigh Valley that’s become a national epicenter of distribution and logistics growth.
But these days, those trucks are among the few vehicles on the road, and rather than being the answer to why you’re annoyed, they’ve become part of the solution to how to deal with the Covid-19 Pandemic.
As the Pandemic spreads, the supply chain keeps on trucking – often with the essential goods needed to sustain a sheltered-in-place population. That includes everything from food to consumer goods to masks to respirators.
It’s particularly evident in the Lehigh Valley, which has become an e-commerce supplier for the entire Northeast.
“In a lot of ways, they’re as much on the front lines as medical personnel, police officers and postal workers,” said Lora Cecere, Founder of Hanover, Pa.-based Supply Chain Insights and author of Supply Chain Shaman. “Not only are they exposed, but they’re providing the goods that we need to keep things going through this crisis.”
APRIL 2020
HOW NEW HAZARD MITIGATION PLAN WILL HELP OUR COMMUNITIES - Your View: Becky Bradley, Geoff Reese, Matt Assad, The Morning Call, April 10, 2020
Drafting a hazard mitigation plan for the Lehigh Valley is one of those tasks that comes with inherently conflicting emotions. An incredible amount of effort goes into anticipating the many disasters that could hit the region and then mapping a detailed plan to mitigate their impacts.
You hope all that effort goes to being better prepared for events that will never happen, but you know some of the 25 disasters contained in the October 2018 Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan are inevitable. Lehigh and Northampton counties are routinely hit by floods, drought, winter storms, extreme temperatures and even hurricanes, as they were when the remnants of Sandy blew through in 2012.
But some of the hazards covered in the plan, such as earthquakes and nuclear incident, are far less likely in this region.
THE FLIP SIDE OF THOSE ANNOYING TRUCKS - April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
We’ve all been stuck on Route 22 and wondered “maybe if all these trucks weren’t out here, this wouldn’t be gridlock.”
Trucks, warehouses and freight have become a familiar target in a Lehigh Valley that’s become a national epicenter of distribution and logistics growth.
But these days, those trucks are among the few vehicles on the road, and rather than being the answer to why you’re annoyed, they’ve become part of the solution to how to deal with the Covid-19 Pandemic.
As the Pandemic spreads, the supply chain keeps on trucking – often with the essential goods needed to sustain a sheltered-in-place population. That includes everything from food to consumer goods to masks to respirators.
It’s particularly evident in the Lehigh Valley, which has become an e-commerce supplier for the entire Northeast.
TRAFFIC COUNTS SHOW COVID-19 IMPACT - April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley residents have been under a stay-at-home order for nearly two weeks and the region’s busiest roadways give a good indication of just how many people are staying in place.
Traffic counts by the LVPC and PennDOT on Interstate 78, Route 33 and Route 309 show a drastic reduction in the number of cars, while the number of trucks in some cases has increased. Overall, traffic measured on I-78 is down 47% over 2019 during the same period, while truck traffic is up 9%.
A similar scenario is playing out on Route 309 near Coopersburg, where traffic has been cut in half and Route 33, where it’s down 48%.
“That’s a good indication of how many people are abiding by the Governor’s order,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “It also shows that the supply lines remain open, as essential goods make their way into, out of and through the Lehigh Valley.”
WHY THE LEHIGH VALLEY NEEDS YOU TO BE COUNTED IN THE 2020 CENSUS -
April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If someone was willing to give you $2,093 for filling out a 12-question survey of routine queries like name, address and age, would you do it?
Well, that’s sort of what happens when you fill out the Census, because that count dictates how $26.7 billion -- $2,093 for every person in Pennsylvania -- will fund everything from roads to hospitals to schools to housing, according to a study by George Washington University. Getting undercounted means getting underfunded, as money that should be coming here goes elsewhere.
That’s one of the many factors that makes filling out the 2020 Census more important than ever.
Beyond that, accurate count data is vital in planning for the future, its effects how much say our region has in federal government policy, and it plays a role in whether people and businesses want to come here.
In other words, missing people means missing out on a lot.
LEHIGH VALLEY HOUSING MARKET: ARROWS POINTING UP -
April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Housing Market is a model of contrasts. Over the last decade it has seen the fewest homes built since the 1930s, but that’s offset by the 3,571 units reviewed in 2019 alone.
Single-family detached homes have dominated the Lehigh Valley market for decades, but that’s offset in the past few years by a more diverse mix that includes more single-family attached and multi-family homes.
And while the inventory dipped to historic lows, driving up prices over the past two years, the Lehigh Valley housing market remains attainable to the typical buyer.
It all adds up to a housing market in transition, according to the LVPC’s BuildLV: Development and Housing Trends Report.
The full BuildLV report can be found at https://www.lvpc.org/subdivisionreport.html.
LVPC MOVING ESSENTIAL PUBLIC MEETINGS TO A VIRTUAL PLATFORM - April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
As the Covid-19 public health pandemic evolves, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is evolving its business operations to accommodate important public input, while following all of the guidelines set by Gov. Tom Wolf and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The LVPC is moving all essential public meetings through the end of April to a virtual platform that will allow the public to participate online and by phone. A series of non-essential meetings have been canceled or postponed.
The first virtual meeting was the 7 pm, March 26, Full Commission meeting. Details on agenda and information from the meeting are available at https://lvpc.org/meetings.html.
“The public plays an important role in everything we do and we never want that to change,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We may not be able to all be in the same room, but we can still come together. Together is how we will get through this difficult time.”
LVPC'S HALPER NAMED WOMAN OF INFLUENCE - April 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Carol Halper spent 14 years helping to bring a calming influence to the busy Allentown office of former Congressman Charlie Dent, so when she arrived at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission in 2018 to find a surprisingly bustling operation, she felt right at home.
For her second act, as Senior Advisor at the LVPC, Halper has been named a 2020 Woman of Influence by the Lehigh Valley Business journal. She’s scheduled to be among 26 women from across the region to be honored during a ceremony June 15 at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks.
The award honors women who show leadership and community involvement while contributing to their companies, industries or communities.
Halper came to the LVPC after serving as a senior member of Dent’s Lehigh Valley district office during his seven terms in Washington and as a legislative aide during his 10 years in the Pennsylvania State Legislature. She retired from the job after Dent decided against running for an eighth term in Congress.
“When I heard Carol was retiring from the Congressional office, I knew I wanted to get her to come with us,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “You just don’t find that kind of talent and experience very often. She’s very quickly become an important part of our mission.”
MARCH 2020
FUTURELV IS NOW ONLINE AND INTERACTIVE - March 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has a new regional plan to guide Lehigh and Northampton counties to 2045 and beyond. But a plan three years in the making can’t have true impact unless everyone has access to it.
The next step in that effort came February 27, when the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study launched a new interactive website, specifically designed to make it easier to navigate FutureLV: The Regional Plan -- the 200-page blueprint for the future.
Want to see the vision for how the region will be better designed for pedestrians and bicyclists? The webpage makes it accessible 24 hours a day.
BUILDLV 2019 SHOWS STEADY HOUSING, INDUSTRIAL, OFFICE GROWTH -
March 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley continued to grow in 2019 as developers and investors worked to keep pace with the thousands of new residents and workers who arrive in the region each year.
While new warehouses continued to impact the development scene, last year also saw the second-most approved new housing units since 2007, a big increase in office development and continued strength in approved public/quasi-public projects, according to the LVPC’s newly released BuildLV: 2019 Development and Housing Trends Report.
As the only entity that reviews every development plan and advises local governments on approvals – there were 451 plans in 2019 – the LVPC is uniquely positioned to use that data to advance the policies of the region’s new comprehensive plan, FutureLV: The Regional Plan. The LVPC has been producing the annual development report for the region since 1972.
In total, 3571 new housing units were proposed on 749 acres of land, while another 16.6 million square feet of non-residential development was proposed on 1419 acres.
FEBRUARY 2020
A NEW CLASS OF CITIZEN PLANNERS - February 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Some came to get the tools to have an impact in their communities, some wanted to sharpen their public service job skills and some came to learn more about how development gets done.
Nearly 70 people took Lehigh Valley Government Academy classes in 2019, including a record 22 who were honored Thursday by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission as Certified Citizen Planners for completing more than 30 hours of LVGA courses in planning, development and zoning.
LVGA courses are tailored to train local planning commissioners, zoning administrators, zoning hearing board members, elected officials or anyone with an interest in planning, about their roles, responsibilities and abilities to have an impact in their community.
LVPC offers the courses in partnership with the Pennsylvania Municipal Planning Education Institute (PMPEI).
It’s the only program of its type that spells out the legal obligations of municipal officials who serve on volunteer boards and commissions.
$137 MILLION DONE, $159 MILLION UNDERWAY - February 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Who hasn’t driven into a construction zone and muttered to themselves “does there have to be construction everywhere?”
The answer to that is well, yes, and that’s not such a bad thing because it’s necessary to keep the transportation network flowing.
The year 2019 was a productive year on the Lehigh Valley’s roadways, as crews completed $137.7 million in construction projects, while continuing work on another $159 million worth of road, bridge and transit projects along some of the region’s busiest roadways.
That includes Route 22, which handles more than 100,000 cars a day. That’s where the $101.5 million bridge over the Lehigh River opened ahead of schedule last fall, widening the region’s busiest bottleneck. The project is part of a Route 22 renewal program that’s relieved congestion by extending interchange lanes from MacArthur Road, through the Fullerton interchange, and across the Lehigh River.
LVPC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NAMED TO REGIONAL WATER COMMITTEE -
February 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf this month named LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley to a committee whose job is protect the quality of the state’s water supply and prepare that supply for the impacts of extreme weather.
Bradley was sworn in to the Delaware Basin Regional Water Resources Committee January 16 by Allentown District Judge Michael D. D’Amore.
The purpose of the committee it to protect the quality of the state’s water supply by linking land use decisions to water management, and to improve water management for things like stormwater and waste water by reducing the damage from extreme conditions that cause floods and droughts.
“Pennsylvania’s water supply is one of its greatest assets and that’s why it’s so important to reduce its vulnerability and manage the impacts from development, water usage and extreme weather,” Bradley said. “Few things are more important than clean air and clean water. I’m honored that Governor Wolf has included me in this effort.” Pennsylvania’s surface water resources includes nearly 2.5 trillion gallons from 86,000 miles of rivers and streams, more than 4,000 lakes, reservoirs and ponds and 120 miles of coastal waters.
Thirty times that lies beneath the surface in groundwater aquifers that rely on more than 40 inches of precipitation each year.
With demand from thermoelectric power generators, mining operations, domestic commercial customers and agricultural users, the total withdrawal from the statewide supply is about 10 billion gallons a day.
Bradley has been LVPC Executive Director since 2013. Late in 2019, she started WorkshopLV: Water, the region’s first water working group, to tackle water quality, supply, infrastructure and management issues regionwide.
JANUARY 2020
WORKSHOPLV: HOUSING KICKS OFF REGIONAL EFFORT -
January 2020, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley will need to determine where to build homes for the more than 4,000 new residents who arrive each year and how to make all that new development available to people of all preferences and incomes.That’s just one of many housing questions facing the region in the coming two decades.
More than 50 housing experts, advocates and community leaders gathered Wednesday to begin answering those questions during the first meeting of WorkshopLV: Housing. The open table working group called together by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, is working on how to manage the region’s growth, without ruining its appeal or pricing some people out of an evolving housing market.
Wednesday’s kick-off centered on identifying the biggest housing issues, who should solve them -- and getting to work.
DRAFT BICYCLE AN PEDESTRIAN MASTERPLAN IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT -
January 2020, Matt Assad, Managing EditorThe Lehigh Valley has a robust road and bridge network, more than 300 miles of trails and a public transit system that serves more than 5 million riders a year.
Transforming those components into a seamless transportation network for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and even drivers is key to the region becoming one of the nation’s most livable.
That’s the mission of Walk/RollLV, the Lehigh Valley’s first ever active transportation masterplan. The Lehigh Valley Transportation Study released the first draft of Walk/RollLV in early December, opening up a 45-day public review process designed to give community leaders, elected officials and the general public the first look at the blueprint for improving walking, biking and accessibility in the roads, trail and transit system.
DRAFT BICYCLE AN PEDESTRIAN MASTERPLAN IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT -
January 2020, Matt Assad, Managing EditorThe Year 2019 will go down in LVPC history as one of our most momentous. We laid the foundation for 30 more municipalities to work together on comprehensive plans, worked to create the first ever bicycle and pedestrian masterplan, adopted a $2.5 billion Long-Range Transportation Plan and partnered to create a Blight Reversal Plan for Northampton County, among a list much too long to detail on one page.
And by the way, we crafted FutureLV: The Regional Plan, creating a blueprint carrying the Lehigh Valley to 2045 and beyond.
But 2020 figures to be an extension of that busy year after the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission board Thursday adopted a 2020 Workplan that includes implementing the policies of FutureLV, completing comprehensive plans for 26 communities, helping to assure a complete count for the 2020 Census, bolstering the LVPC’s DataLV online project and adopting a more than $400 million Transportation Improvement Program. That is added to the usual day-to-day tasks – such as reviewing every development plan filed in the region, educating prospective community leaders and municipal workers and facilitating more than $100 million a year in transportation projects – that come with being the two-county Planning Commission and serving as the staff for the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, which serves as the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization.
DRAFT BICYCLE AN PEDESTRIAN MASTERPLAN IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT -
January 2020, Matt Assad, Managing EditorThe New Year will bring new leadership at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, after Greg Zebrowski was elected by the 37-member board to take over as Chair, during the Commission’s annual reorganization December 19.
Zebrowski will be taking the reins from Stephen Repasch, whose maximum two-year term ends with the close of 2019.
Zebrowski has been Vice Chair the past year. Repasch and Zebrowski helped shepherd the commission through a busy year that included developing and adopting one of the nation’s first comprehensive plans that combines land use policy with the Long-Range Transportation Plan.
“Steve has done a great job. I’m honored to follow in his footsteps to continue the exemplary work of the LVPC,” Zebrowski said. “With the growth pressures this region is facing, our work is more important than ever. I’m excited to be part of the team.”
Zebrowski, of Bethlehem, formerly served on Northampton County Council, the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. board and Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority board. He was appointed to the LVPC board in 2018 and became Vice Chair in 2019.
Also elected at the annual meeting were Vice Chair Steven Glickman, an architect from Bethlehem, who moves up from the Treasurer’s post. Pam Pearson, a Crayola worker and Tatamy Borough Councilwoman, becomes the new Treasurer.
LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley serves as Commission Secretary.
DRAFT BICYCLE AN PEDESTRIAN MASTERPLAN IS OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT -
January 2020, Matt Assad, Managing EditorOne of Pennsylvania’s most successful Local Technical Assistance Programs has released a 2020 schedule of 11 courses that can help make your community safer and more efficient.
Now in its 11th year of partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has opened all 2020 courses for registration, led off by its popular Roadway Safety Features, January 29. The full-day class can help municipalities identify roadway hazards and establish the right countermeasures on residential streets.
All LTAP classes are free. Half-day classes run from 8 am-12 pm, and full-day courses that run from 8 am-3 pm include lunch. You can find the full schedule and registration information at http://lvpc.org/ltap.html.Other courses include Drainage: The Key to Roads That Last, Work Zone Traffic Control and the newest course, Pedestrians and Crosswalks. All of the courses are held at the 961 Marcon Boulevard offices on the LVPC in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.
Lehigh Valley public works and municipal workers have made this region’s LTAP classes the most well-attended in the state, with class sizes averaging 23.5 students.
“These courses offer a lot of value for municipalities that want their workers to learn the best practices for designing and maintaining road and traffic systems,” said Brian Hite, LVPC Senior Planning Technician. “We actually get students who travel from other regions for these. And why not? It’s useful information and it’s free.”
While the primary objective of all of the courses is to keep local road crews and municipal workers up to date on their training, some make the worker, elected officials or municipality eligible for cheaper insurance rates.
Since 2009, 2844 students have attended LTAP classes at LVPC, including 14 who have earned the title of Roads Scholar, for attending at least 10 classes over a three-year period.
2019
$89 MILLION DONE, $475 MILLION TO GO - February 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
It’s been a productive two years for Lehigh Valley road construction crews who have completed more than $89 million worth of road, bridge and transit projects, while continuing another more than quarter-billion dollars in new projects along some of the region’s busiest roadways.
Done are major projects that include the $30.4 million rehabilitation of the Fahy Bridge, the $5 million replacement of the Lynn Avenue Bridge and the $6.4 million resurfacing of Center Street – all in Bethlehem -- and the $7 million job to replace the Cedar Crest Boulevard Bridge over the Little Cedar Creek in Allentown.
Bigger projects that remain underway include $101 million for the Lehigh River Bridge along Route 22, the $40 million replacement of the Coplay/Northampton Bridge and the $31 million rehabilitation of the Tilghman Street Bridge in Allentown. While the Lehigh River Bridge is expected to be completed this fall, the Coplay/Northampton Bridge is scheduled for completion in 2020 and Tilghman Street is expected to be done in 2021.
$20,000 GRANT FOR FIRST HEALTH MEETS TRANSPORTATION PROJECT - February 2019,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is embarking on a project that will use transportation design to improve public health.
With help from a $20,000 grant from the state-funded WalkWorks Program, LVPC will identify locations across the region where there are pedestrian, bicycle and transit injuries or deaths, and areas with negative health issues, such as obesity and diabetes.
Then it will suggest design changes aimed at improving health and saving lives.
It’s the first such project in the region that seeks to use data linking health and transportation as a tool to create a safer and healthier environment.
“This gives us a chance to make a real difference in locations and neighborhoods with negative health outcomes,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “It’s a way of targeting resources where they can have the most impact. We’re very excited about our increased commitment to active transportation in the Lehigh Valley.”
A NEW CLASS OF CITIZEN PLANNERS - February 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More than 70 public officials, professional planners and private citizens gathered this fall on a shared mission to learn more about how their community is run.
All of them came to take classes at the Lehigh Valley Government Academy (LVGA), but a select few were recognized as Certified Citizen Planners during the January Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) meeting for completing more than 30 hours of LVGA courses.
LVGA courses are tailored to train local planning commissioners, zoning administrators, zoning hearing board members, elected officials and anyone with an interest in planning about their roles, responsibilities and rights.
“We’d like to recognize the efforts of our Lehigh Valley Government academy graduates,” LVPC Chairman Stephen Repasch said during the January 31 Commission meeting. “These folks have put in a lot of hours and gone above and beyond the call.”
WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF DEVELOPABLE LAND - Becky Bradley, Executive Director, Your View column in The Morning Call, February 25, 2019
Mark Twain once said “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.” We’re not in the business of giving investment advice, but the last part of that quote is particularly relevant to the Lehigh Valley today. The fact is, this is an attractive region not only for all those companies buying up land to build massive distribution centers, but for people moving here to take advantage of our affordable living, beautiful open space and high quality of life.
As a result, our land is being developed at a rate of roughly two square miles a year. That’s in this market of moderate growth. During the housing booms of the 1980s and mid-2000s, we were developing greenfields at nearly twice that rate. To put it bluntly, we’re running out of developable land. No one is suggesting we’re in crisis – yet. But we planners tend to play the long game, so it’s in all of our best interest to take steps now before a crisis happens. Certainly, no one is suggesting we halt development.
But what we are advocating is finding a healthy balance. Warehousing versus farmland. Housing versus open space. Development versus preservation.
WORK ZONE DEATHS A MATTER OF SPEED - March 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
You’re driving home from work when you see a construction zone ahead and immediately think “this is going to slow me down.”
Perfect, according to state officials, because that’s what you should expect.
April 8 begins National Work Zone Safety Week, as federal, state and local authorities raise awareness to the need to slow down and be alert when approaching and passing through work zones.
Statewide, nearly 200 people have been killed and more than 2,200 were injured in work zone crashes over the past decade, including eight people who were killed and more than 100 injured in the Lehigh Valley, according to Pennsylvania’s Crash Information database.
Since 1970, 89 PennDOT workers have died in work zone crashes
BUSTING THAT NEW YORK MYTH WITH TREASURE TROVE OF COMMUTER DATA - Becky Bradley, Executive Director, Your View column in The Morning Call, March 24, 2019
People often call the Lehigh Valley a bedroom community of New York City. Not only do we have our own unique identity, but the facts simply don’t back up those assumptions. The parade of “Beemers” streaming across Interstate 78 each day to well-paying jobs in Manhattan isn’t nearly as long as you might think.
Our latest analysis of commuter data reveals some interesting facts about how far people are willing to travel to work here and the strength of the Lehigh Valley job market.
More than 2,000 Valley residents work in Manhattan, according to the latest U.S. Census figures. While that’s no small number, I’d be willing to bet that most people in this region think it’s a lot higher. In reality, it’s dwarfed by the nearly 7,400 people who work in Philadelphia and the more than 14,400 people who work in Montgomery County, primarily in the King of Prussia area. Even if you add all five New York City boroughs together, they draw fewer than 3,500 Lehigh Valley residents there for work.
WHERE SHOULD WE PARK ALL THESE TRUCKS? - March 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Imagine you’re looking for a parking space and if you don’t find one soon, you could be fined or maybe even risk losing your job. And by the way, your car is 70 feet long and it’s illegal to park it on your community’s public streets.
That’s the plight of today’s tractor-trailer driver. Truck parking is a growing issue in communities across the nation, but it’s particularly relevant in the Lehigh Valley, which sits at the epicenter of one of the nation’s busiest warehouse and logistics corridors.
While communities race to pass laws designed to rid their streets of idle trucks they argue are loud, unsightly, pollution-causers, truck drivers trying to contend with new restrictions are lobbying for more places to park and rest.
I-78 SET TO BE ALTERNATIVE FUELS CORRIDOR - COULD ROUTES 22 AND 33 BE NEXT?
- March 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Efforts to reduce carbon emissions are changing how we travel and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has decided Interstate 78 should help lead the way into a greener future.
PennDOT is recommending to the Federal Highway Administration that I-78 be designated as an Alternative Fuel Corridor, making the highway a more attractive route for people with electric or compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles and putting it in line for the funding needed to install alternative fueling stations.
It’s the third round of designations for a federal program started in 2016, and LVPC officials are asking that Routes 22 and 33 be added to the list in the next round. Interstate 476, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension, was designated in 2016.
SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, APARTMENTS AND WAREHOUSES DRIVE LV DEVELOPMENT SCENE -
April 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Apartments and warehouses continued their reshaping of the Lehigh Valley development landscape, but for the first time in a decade they’re joined by an old favorite.
The single-family detached home has re-emerged, as developers look to restock the housing inventory that dipped to its lowest level in nearly two decades, according to the BuildLV: 2018 Annual Development Report released Thursday by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
“Housing construction, coupled with commercial development is a great indicator of a healthy economy,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley.
Since 1972, the LVPC has produced an annual development report for the region. What is now called BuildLV has become an integral tool for developers, investors, planners and municipal leaders looking to track development trends across the Lehigh Valley.
ALL IN ON HAZARD MITIGATION - April 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
All 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities. Lehigh and Northampton counties. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. The Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The effort to bring the region a greener, more resilient future is now universally endorsed.
The adoption of the Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan in March by Northampton County Council ended months of approvals from both counties, every municipality in the Valley, and state and federal authorities for a plan designed to prepare the region for disasters such as hurricanes, winter storms, floods and the drug overdose crisis.
With full adoption, every community in the region is now eligible for federal grants to fund some of the more than 1,100 projects written into the plan by Valley municipal and emergency management leaders.
NOAA GRANT TO PROMOTE HAZARD MITIGATION AWARENESS - May 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Tucked away in a three-story former movie theater building on Easton’s Northampton Street, the Nurture Nature Center will never be confused with Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute or Washington D.C.’s National Air and Space Museum.
But then, those internationally renowned science centers haven’t been asked to help save the planet by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The Nurture Nature Center has received a $459,420 NOAA grant to conduct a four-year program, titled Create Resilience, to develop partnerships with students, raise awareness to the effects of climate change and promote the Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan.
Nurture Nature is one of nine grantees among 237 applicants from across the country, along with such centers as Boston’s Museum of Science in Boston, San Diego’s Ocean Discovery Institute and the University of Michigan.
LEARN HOW DEVELOPMENT IS DONE - May 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Ever wonder how that property down the street got rezoned? Or how your community leaders decided to allow a new warehouse to be built? Or maybe you’re an elected or municipal official who wants a better understanding of how the planning and development process works.
The 2019 Lehigh Valley Government Academy courses can cover all that and more.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) offers three courses a year in partnership with the Pennsylvania Municipal Planning Education Institute (PMPEI). It’s the only program of its type that spells out the legal obligations of municipal officials who serve on volunteer boards and commissions. These volunteer positions are key to maintaining the quality of life locally and regionally by balancing growth and development with infrastructure, educational, recreational, environment and other needs.
LEHIGH VALLEY ECONOMY STRONG, BUT SLOWING SLIGHTLY - June 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Hiring is slowing and business confidence is gradually declining, but the Lehigh Valley economy remains built for continued long-term growth, according to regional experts.
During an episode of Lehigh Valley Discourse, on WDIY, economist Kamran Afshar said his latest survey of Lehigh Valley businesses injects a dose of reality into a regional economy that’s been expanding for a near-record 10 years. Purchasing plans of Lehigh Valley companies that responded to the survey dropped by 4% in the past three months, hiring plans dropped 9% and overall business confidence in the economy fell 7%, according to Afshar’s quarterly analysis, released in May.
It was the second consecutive quarter in which all of those indicators fell, Afshar said to his radio show guests LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley, Manufacturing Resource Center President Jack Pfunder and Lehigh Valley International Airport (LVIA) Executive Director Thomas Stoudt.
WALK/ROLL LV EVENT COMING JUNE 12 - June 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With music blaring and a drone flying overhead, people from across the region will dance in traffic at one of the region’s busiest intersections in a faux protest that will almost certainly turn heads, raise eyebrows and cause a little controlled chaos.
But that’s exactly what the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and the City of Bethlehem will be going for as they try to create a safer, more connected transportation system for walkers, rollers and drivers.
On June 12, the city, the commission and more than 50 partners from across the region will be staging a sort of active transportation block party at Broad and New streets in Bethlehem. The event will include a disc jockey, flash mob dancing in traffic and lots of education designed to promote the creation of the region’s first ever master plan for pedestrians, bikers and people with disabilities. Walk/RollLV, scheduled to be released by LVPC later this year, is to be a blueprint for filling the gaps in the roads, trail and transit system to provide a seamless network connecting every community in the region.
STARTING THE WALK/ROLL MOVEMENT - July 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Motorists looked on with bemusement as dozens of sign-carrying residents danced in the intersection at Broad and New Streets in Bethlehem. Normally, those kind of actions during rush hour at one of the region’s high crash intersections would bring an arrest or at least a ticket.
But dancing among the group was Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong, PennDOT Press Officer Ron Young and half the Bethlehem Health Bureau. No, this episode of controlled chaos got exactly the reaction that was intended.
It was designed to ignite the Walk/RollLV movement.
“As you may have noticed, we’re trying to create a movement,” said Stephen Repasch, Chairman of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. “A movement that takes a transportation system that was designed primarily for cars, and enhances it to be more for walkers, bikers and rollers – everyone, whether they drive or not. To do that, we need to identify the obstacles in our trail, sidewalk, road and public transit system, and figure out a way to remove them, so we can all get around more easily and more effectively, without what you’re seeing behind us.”
MULTI-MUNICIPAL STRENGTH IN NUMBERS - July 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Some are seizing on money-savings and efficiency that comes with working together, while others are looking for better ways to protect their farmland and open space.
Twenty-six Lehigh Valley communities representing more than 120,000 people are working on multi-municipal plans designed to manage their futures together, enabling them to save tax dollars and ultimately better handle the development pressure facing all of them.
IS THE LEHIGH VALLEY BECOMING OVERBUILT WITH WAREHOUSES?
- August 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With its prime location, able workforce and robust highway network, the Lehigh Valley has become one of the nation’s hottest markets for distribution centers, as developers have built or proposed more than 40 million square feet of new warehouse space just since 2013.
But as available land near major highways like Route 22 and Interstate 78 becomes increasingly scarce, developers have ventured farther into rural regions causing some to ask, is the Lehigh Valley becoming overbuilt with warehouses? Experts say, it depends on how you look at it.
HELP THE REGION WIN A $21 MILLION GRANT - September 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley is in the running for a $21.3 million federal grant to help fund a $56 million new commuter road and trail corridor from Allentown’s waterfront along the Lehigh River to Whitehall Township, but we need your help to get this Better Utilizing Investment to Leverage Development (Build) grant. U.S. Department of Transportation officials have said the region’s grant application is flawless – this is our fifth year trying – but this is a lot of money in a very competitive national program. They say they need to know we want it bad enough. They said they need to hear from our residents.
That’s where you can help show that we not only want it, we need it to help create a road, sidewalk and trail network that pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers can use for recreation and commuting.
2019 SHAPING UP AS BUSY DEVELOPMENT YEAR - September 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Development across the Lehigh Valley showed no sign of slowing in the first half of 2019, as municipalities approved 574 new housing units and more than 2.8 million square feet of non-residential space.
Even more telling is the amount of development proposed, but not yet approved. Another 1,269 housing units and 6.2 million square feet of non-residential development – a majority of it warehouses – were proposed from January to June, but remain in the approval process.
It continues a trend in which developers try to take advantage of an improving housing market and an online shopping boom that’s made the Lehigh Valley one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions for warehousing and logistics.
It also comes as the LVPC releases FutureLV: The Regional Plan, which maps out a strategy to manage the region’s growth, while preserving the farmland, open space and natural resources that define the Lehigh Valley’s character.
STILL TIME TO COMMENT ON FUTURELV: THE REGIONAL PLAN -
September 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley is growing fast and the world is changing even faster.
FutureLV: The Regional Plan is designed to help us prepare for all that change as a thriving region works to manage its growth and prepare for the arrival of more people, more visitors, more online shopping, more autonomous vehicles and well, just plain more of almost everything.
After nearly three years that included more than 170 public meetings and events and participation by 8,500 residents, a draft of the plan is now available at LVPC.org and at public offices across the region. Serving as the plan for Lehigh and Northampton counties, FutureLV will remain open for public comment through September 23.
The plan includes an innovative approach toward managing a successful region’s continued growth, while protecting the key aspects – farmland, open space, scenic vistas, prime locations – that are so important in defining its high quality of life. But the challenges ahead are many, and will require we work together.
IT'S AN IMPORTANT TIME FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING - October 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
You know that walking path that runs near your home? Or the neighborhood you live in? Or even that scenic stretch of farmland you pass on the way home from work? It’s all the result of meticulous planning by architects, engineers, builders and yes, community planners.
October is Community Planning Month, nationally and locally. Change is constant and community planning helps manage that change, while giving the public a chance to have a say in how that change should look. It’s particularly important for the Lehigh Valley, where population is projected to grow by 24 percent – or 165,000 people -- by 2045.
“Community planning is more important than ever for us,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We’re running out of land, we’re filling up with people and businesses want to be here. We have to make some hard choices as we determine how to manage our success, without losing the things we love.”
JOIN THE REGIONAL WATER WORKING GROUP - October 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Unusually high rain often inundates sewage treatment plants, aging water systems are taxing municipal or authority budgets and new stormwater regulations have worried community leaders asking “how are we going to handle all this?”
Doing it together may be the answer. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is inviting anyone with interest to join the new Water Working Group to tackle the many water, sewer and storm runoff issues facing Lehigh Valley communities. The Water Working Group will kick off at 2 p.m. October 31 with our first ever Planning + Pretzels session at the 961 Marcon Boulevard, Allentown offices of LVPC.
LVTS, LVPC ADOPT FUTURELV: THE REGIONAL PLAN - November 2019,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
FutureLV: The Regional Plan got unanimous approval from the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study October 2, and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission followed with unanimous approval of the plan on October 31, ending a three-month period of debate that saw the plan receive more than 200 public comments.
The approvals open a new phase in which FutureLV will head to the Lehigh County Commissioners, Northampton County Council, and the US Department of Transportation over the coming weeks and months.
FutureLV is designed to help the Lehigh Valley manage its steady economic, population and job growth over the next 25 years, while preserving the farmland, recreation and open space that defines the quality of life residents have come to expect. The LVTS approval was necessary to keep transportation money flowing into the region for the current Transportation Improvement Program that is investing $534 million on road, bridge, trail and transit projects over four years.
PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP IS OUR 2019 COMMUNITY OF DISTINCTION -
November 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Plainfield Township’s part in the first ever 10-community Slate Belt regional plan, it’s integral role in starting the Slate Belt Regional Police department and its purchasing agreements with neighboring communities are prime examples of municipal cooperation in action.
But where Plainfield has really put its partnerships to work is in its efforts to protect the environment. The Township has partnered with Northampton County to expand the Two Rivers Trail, established its own Appalachian Trail Conservation Overlay District designed to protect the Mountain, adopted new conservation by design policies and put a focus on farmland preservation.
For these reasons, and many more, Plainfield Township was named the LVPC’s 2019 Community of Distinction October 16, during the 6th Annual Lehigh Valley Gala + Awards at DeSales University. The award is given each year to one community that’s practiced a long-term commitment to planning excellence, innovation and municipal cooperation.
STRENGTH THROUGH MUNICIPAL PARTNERSHIPS - November 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Three years from now, more than half of Lehigh Valley municipalities could be in multi-municipal agreements that will help them save money and increase efficiency of services, while protecting their farmland and open space.
Twenty-six communities are currently building Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plans that are expected to be in place in by 2021, six completed one last year and four more are about to begin the process.
The Multi-Municipal trend prompted municipal leaders from across the region to gather Wednesday for the latest LVPC Planning & Pizza session, to discuss the benefits – and challenges -- of multi-municipal planning.
LEHIGH VALLEY GROWTH AND RESILIENCY ON NATIONAL DISPLAY - November 2019,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Consumer goods, warehouses, trucks, and well, people have been flowing into the Lehigh Valley in increasing amounts in recent years. So, how does a region remain resilient in the face of extreme growth and extreme weather?
The answer is education, planning and investment, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley told more than 50 directors from Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) from across the country October 29, during the National Association of Regional Council’s Executive Director’s national conference.
Because of its strong commitment and focus on the environment and resiliency and its efforts in helping to prepare a growing region for extreme weather and disaster, the LVPC was invited to make a presentation on “Promoting Regional Resiliency.”
“It’s an honor to be recognized by peer organizations, including many larger than our region, as a leader on resiliency,” Bradley said. “The balance between environmental land use, hazard mitigation, open space, climate change and even the economy has put the work of the LVPC on the map.”
FREIGHT LEADERS TOUT LINKING LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION - November 2019,
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
How land is developed impacts the transportation system, just as where transportation investment are made affects how land will be developed. Yet, in most regions the comprehensive land use plan and transportation plan are separate documents.
And that was the case in the Lehigh Valley, until October, when FutureLV: The Regional Plan was approved by the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study and LVPC. For the first time, the region’s plan links $2.5 billion in transportation investment over the next 25 years to land use policies designed to build active centers and corridors, while preserving farmland and open space.
As members of Multi-State Freight Working Group met at LVPC in October, some of the Northeast’s foremost transportation and freight leaders viewed the concept as something that could, and maybe should, be duplicated across the nation.
THE REGION'S FIRST EVER BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN DRAFT MASTER PLAN IS HERE - December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has a robust road and bridge network, more than 300 miles of trails and a public transit system that serves more than 5 million riders a year.
Transforming those components into a seamless transportation network for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and even drivers is key to the region becoming one of the nation’s most livable.
That’s the mission of Walk/RollLV, the Lehigh Valley’s first ever active transportation masterplan. The Lehigh Valley Transportation Study released the first draft of Walk/RollLV Wednesday, opening up a 45-day public review process designed to give community leaders, elected officials and the general public the first look at the blueprint for improving walking, biking and accessibility in the roads, trail and transit system.
PENNDOT RELEASES 12-YEAR PLAN TO SPEND $400 MILLION ON I-78 -
December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
PennDOT Wednesday released a 12-year interstate renewal plan that includes nearly $400 million being pumped into Interstate-78.
The $10 billion statewide plan allocated money for several Lehigh Valley projects, the lion’s share of it going along I-78 between Route 100 and the Berks County line.
The plan calls for:
• $336 million to be spent between Route 100 and the Berks County line to reconstruct the roadway, add truck climbing lanes and to construct a new interchange at Adams Road. Most of that money isn’t slated to be spent until between 2027 and 2032.
• $20.5 million to repair I-78 from Easton Road to Route 33, for patching, road surface repairs and drainage improvements. The work is scheduled to be complete by 2024.
• $20.8 million to be spent along I-78 between Lehigh Street and the Route 309 Interchange. The work is scheduled to be completed in 2025.
• $10.3 million to repair rough roadway along eastbound I-78, from Route 309 to just west of the Route 412 Interchange in Bethlehem. Most of the work is to be completed by 2022.
• $7.75 million to repair rough roadway along I-78, from Cedar Crest Boulevard to Lehigh Street. Most of the work is to be done by 2022.
TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM DRAFT 2021-2024 PROCESS BEGINS -
December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Wednesday opened the process of building the 2021-2024 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for the Lehigh Valley.
The $272 million initial cut of the infrastructure funding plan was released during the public meeting of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS). The plan, which includes several carry over projects from the current 2019-2022 TIP, will be debated and revised in the coming months, before its scheduled adoption in July.
The LVTS began discussing the first draft for the 2021-2024 TIP immediately after adopting the FutureLV: The Regional Plan in October. While FutureLV includes the 25-year Long-Range Transportation Plan, the TIP is a four-year spending plan for road, bridge, bicycle and pedestrian projects.
The proposed draft TIP comes six months after state officials notified municipal leaders and transportation planners from across the Commonwealth that local transportation budgets would be drastically cut, in part, to allocate more money for the state’s deteriorated Interstate system.
In the coming months the draft TIP will be put through a detailed air quality, equity, and environmental justice analysis, and a public comment period, and could be in for significant changes as Lehigh Valley planners, municipal officials and PennDOT officials try to maintain a transportation network where funding is shrinking, even as the region grows by 4,000 to 6,000 residents a year. The Lehigh Valley’s cuts were 26% less than previous estimates.
The four-year TIP is updated every two years and the new TIP is scheduled to take effect in October of 2020.
FUTURELV IS NOW THE REGIONAL PLAN - December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
It is the product of more than 240 public meetings, events and strategy labs attended by nearly 10,000 people had input from hundreds of community groups and stakeholders and been the subject of intense debate for the past three months.
Over the past three years, people in every corner of the Lehigh Valley have had a say in crafting the vision for FutureLV: The Regional Plan, and as of November 26, the plan designed to guide the region to 2045 and beyond has the approval of Lehigh and Northampton counties.
It has previously been adopted by the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission in October. It remains under review by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“This really has been the work of so many people from across the region, from everyone who attended the planning meetings to the municipalities who sent us data to the county leaders who helped us refine the plan during the comment period,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “I’d like to thank all of them. Their commitment to maintaining the Lehigh Valley as a great place to live work and play is unmatched.”
INTRODUCING WORKSHOPLV - December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley has a new regional plan that sets direction for everything from housing to land use to water management to transportation.
Now, comes the task of putting all that new policy to work—and you can help.
WorkshopLV will be a series of new working groups, populated by interested citizens, to help tackle some of the region’s most important and challenging issues.
“This is all about building collaborations to get things done,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “We’ve chosen two of the tougher issues to start with - Housing and Water.”
The kick-off meeting for the new WorkshopLV | Housing is scheduled for 3 pm, December 18, at the Workforce Board Lehigh Valley’s 555 Union Boulevard, Allentown office. The effort will be a collaborative, open table whose job will be to identify and address a wide range of housing issues, including supply, variety and cost.
MOUSETRAP BATON PASSED TO EASTON - December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Benjamin Franklin once said the only things certain in life are death and taxes. That’s only because old Ben didn’t get a chance to see Lehigh Valley public works professionals repeated placement in Pennsylvania’s Build a Better Mouse Competition.
For the fifth time in seven years, a Lehigh Valley municipal crew – this time from the City of Easton – is being recognized statewide for its initiative, ingenuity and frugality.
Easton’s public works crew members Duane Woolverton and Bob Piperato channeled their inner McGyver to pull together an old stop sign post, car jack and a hook to create a device that can easily lift inlet grates – some of them weighing as much as 1,000 pounds. The contraption, costing $150 in labor and scrap parts, keeps crews from needing a backhoe to remove inlet grates during seasonal cleaning, said Easton Public Works Director Dave Hopkins.
Easton’s submission placed second among entries from across the state.
LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITIES GET $5.1 MILLION FOR PEDESTRIAN SAFETY PROJECTS -
December 2019, Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Seven Lehigh Valley communities will be benefiting from state grants designed to make their streets, neighborhoods, trails and development projects more welcoming to pedestrians, bicyclists and people with disabilities.
Grants from the Multimodal Transportation Fund were approved in November for safety improvement projects in Alburtis Borough, Coopersburg Borough, Easton, Fountain Hill Borough, Lower Macungie Township, Macungie Borough and Upper Saucon Township.
The $5.1 million in Lehigh Valley area grants were part of nearly $80 million in grants approved for 141 projects in 42 counties across the state.
“Supporting Pennsylvania’s infrastructure supports our communities and our economy,” said Governor Wolf. “By making infrastructure investments in projects across the commonwealth, we will make it easier for commuters to get to and from work safely, and for businesses to transport their goods efficiently. These are investments with far-reaching impacts.”
YOUR VIEW: HOW TO STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN GROWTH AND PRESERVATION-
December 1, 2019, Becky Bradley, Executive Director, article in The Morning Call
The Lehigh Valley is such a successful region that 4,000 to 6,000 more people arrive every year to take advantage of its unique character, beautiful landscape and high quality of life.
But how do we preserve all that good, while managing all that growth? Well, we’ve been working on that for close to three years. The result of that work — along with input and ideas from literally thousands of people from across Lehigh and Northampton counties — is FutureLV: The Regional Plan.
FutureLV is a blueprint designed to guide the region to 2045 and beyond. The fact is, the Lehigh Valley is at a tipping point. We’re not only growing fast in people, but we’re developing fast.
2018
A NEW CLASS OF CITIZEN PLANNERS - January 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Some were public officials looking to better understand their leadership role, some were professional planners bolstering their expertise and a few were private residents who were curious about how their community is run.
A new class of eight Citizen Planners was recognized Thursday for completing more than 30 hours of Lehigh Valley Government Academy courses offered at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission offices.
“The Commission would like to recognize all the folks who have spent hours and hours and hours getting their planning certification,” said LVPC Chairman Stephen Repasch.
To be eligible, participants had to complete three of the four courses offered at the academy. Available courses are Community Planning, Subdivision and Land Development Review, Zoning, and Zoning Administration.
AIRPORT AREA STUDY TO MEASURE WAREHOUSE IMPACT - January 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Hundreds of acres of land that not long ago were farmed for corn, soybean and wheat just north of the Lehigh Valley International Airport (LVIA) will soon be sprouting warehouses the size of a dozen football fields. Gone are the tractors that once tilled the fields, soon to be replaced by tractor-trailers delivering goods and cars driven by hundreds of new warehouse and distribution center workers.
The impact of all that change in the communities near LVIA is about to be put under a microscope during a six-month Airport Area Transportation Study being shepherded by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study.
PETER LEYDEN ENCORE - January 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If you missed renowned futurist Peter Leyden’s trip into the Lehigh Valley, here’s your chance to, well, go back to the future. Leyden’s 80-minute keynote presentation is now available here for anyone who missed his ground-breaking view of the future, or anyone who just wants to take another look.
REPASCH ELECTED LVPC CHAIR - January 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The New Year brought new leadership at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, as Stephen Repasch takes over as Chair of the 37-member board after he was elected during the Commission’s annual reorganization.
HELP LESSEN THE IMPACT OF THE NEXT DISASTER - February 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
There’s no predicting when the Lehigh Valley will see the kind of damaging floods it saw in 2006, or the punishing winds that Superstorm Sandy brought in 2012, but being prepared requires planning now—and your help is needed.
The first public meeting to help update the Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan is scheduled for 7 p.m. February 20, at Pinebrook Family Answers, 402 N. Fulton St., Allentown.
DRIVERLESS CARS, $130M AQUARIUMS AND 28,000 WAREHOUSE WORKERS - February 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley economy is growing fast, automated cars are coming sooner than you might think, and a $130 million aquarium that once seemed like a dream is now “doable.”
Those were among the subjects tackled during the most recent episode of Business Matters on WFMZ-TV, Channel 69. The 30-minute show featured a panel of experts consisting of Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Executive Director Becky Bradley, Discover Lehigh Valley President Michael Stershic, Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. President Don Cunningham and Air Products Community Relations and Philanthropy Manager Laurie Gostley Hackett.
The episode aired Monday, Jan. 29, but you can find it at: wfmz.com/businessmatters.
LVPC FEATURED ON WDIY RADIO - February 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley can’t seem to stop talking about the future – and that’s important to maintaining our quality of life and global competitiveness.
The LVPC and its two-year effort to write a new Regional Comprehensive Plan was featured during an hourlong radio show on WDIY-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate based in Bethlehem.
The show originally aired January 18, on WDIY-FM, 88.1.
EASTON AND COOPERSBURG GET PENNDOT GRANTS - March 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pedestrians will find it easier to cross Main Street in Coopersburg and bicyclists will feel more welcome on Easton’s Wood Avenue with help from two PennDOT grants designed to promote multimodal transportation.
Governor Tom Wolf announced 45 grants last month, including $175,000 to improve Coopersburg’s busy Main Street, and $450,000 to help fund a safety project along a half-mile section of Wood Avenue in Easton.
“Our multimodal investments support important projects that help residents and local economies,” said Governor Wolf. “We are making possible improvements that will bring significant benefits to these communities.”
HELP SHAPE THE FUTURE - March 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Should that patch of farmland or open space in your town be developed for warehouses, homes or just left alone? Should municipal planners spend money on bigger highways or more trails, and how soon should we prepare for driverless cars?
The future of the Lehigh Valley is being shaped right now, and this is your chance to weigh in.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is distributing a 24-question survey to get public input that can help the LVPC as it writes a new Regional Comprehensive Plan that is designed to guide how the Lehigh Valley should grow in the coming decades.
ROUTE 145 TO GET SAFETY UPGRADE - March 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
A strip of roadway that is the site of frequent vehicle crashes will soon get $3.5 million in upgrades designed to improve safety.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has awarded the money as part of the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) for a project to reduce crashes along Route 145, from Susquehanna Street to Emmaus Avenue in Allentown.
The nearly one-mile stretch of road passes in front of the Mountainville Shopping Center.
PA INVESTS IN LEHIGH VALLEY RAILS - April 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone who’s grown used to that telltale whistle bellowing every time a train rumbles through one of the 43 active Lehigh Valley railroad crossings knows that the rail freight industry is alive and well in the region.
Pennsylvania has decided to invest nearly $4 million to keep it that way, as part of an effort to improve safety and conditions along some of the region’s busiest rail lines.
LEHIGH VALLEY LANDS FIRST PA FREIGHT SUMMIT - April 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone who needs further evidence that the Lehigh Valley has become a national epicenter for warehousing and logistics should know that Pennsylvania is about to hold its first ever Freight Summit – and it will be here.
The Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Summit is scheduled for June 21-22 at Lehigh University’s Iacocca Hall.
The two-day event will start Thursday with a series of panel discussions opened by state Secretary of Transportation Leslie Richards and led by freight industry experts to include CBRE Executive Vice President Bill Wolf and Majestic Realty Co. Senior Vice President Ed Konjoyan.
The second day of the summit will consist of a guided tour of several manufacturing and distribution facilities across the region.
HOMES SALES UP WHILE MANY FLOCK TO APARTMENTS - April 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Houses are selling again, more people are renting and the cost of new homes are finally starting to rise, according to the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s new Housing Market Report.
An analysis of thousands of housing sales and rental unit data from 2012 through 2016 shows movement in the sale of homes, but the report’s most revealing look may be that the number of renters has been increasing steadily since 2012. Over those five years, the Lehigh Valley gained 6,561 renters, while the number of owner-occupied homes fell by 3,923.
TIP TOPS $500 MILLION - April 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Route 22 will lead a long list of road projects to be done, 57 bridges will be rehabilitated and more than 100 LANTA buses are to be replaced as part of a four-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) unveiled Wednesday before the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS).
The $534 million plan is a $76 million increase over the current TIP, as some of the region’s busiest roadways and bridges are slated for improvement.
DRIVERLESS VEHICLES, ALTERNATIVE FUELS AND THE NEED TO BE READY - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Driverless cars are coming and alternative fuels are coming even sooner, but we can’t forget to invest in the road infrastructure needed to support them.
That was a message from experts Thursday during the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce Transportation Summit, titled “The Future of Transportation.” Before more than 150 people at the Mack Trucks Customer Center, planning, transportation and industry experts said new technologies will bring drastic changes to how we get around, but maintaining the existing road network will be key in making it all happen.
“The technology really does rely on our infrastructure remaining in good condition,” said Roger Cohen, Senior Advisor to Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Leslie Richards. “[Automated vehicle] sensors don’t do well with potholes or faded road striping.”
COMMUNITY BIKE WORKS KIDS ARE HELPING US PLAN - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The kids at Community Bike Works in Allentown didn’t let a little rain stop them from celebrating Nation Bike Week. Our ride through Cedar Beach Park got rained out Wednesday, but 11 kids from Community Bike Works met with LVPC staff to tell us their favorite places to ride their bikes and what they’d like to improve about our bike and trail network.
“I really think we should have more ride-sharing programs,” said 14-year-old Nasheera, of Allentown. “Maybe even include those vending machines where you can buy tools to fix your bike, like they have in New York.”
The Coalition for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) joined in during our session at Community Bike Works.
THANK YOU LTAP GRADUATES - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More than 60 graduates of the Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) courses joined in Friday in the second annual LTAP Recognition Celebration at Canal Park in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.
The two-hour event included a free barbecue buffet by Bob-B-Q and an appearance by 40-year consultant/instructor Sam Gregory.
“What you do is really important, and things are changing every year, so there’s always something new to learn,” Gregory said, before ending with a quote from Ben Franklin. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
LTAP classes free and are held every year at the offices of Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Upcoming courses include Americans with Disabilities on May 22, Salt and Snow Management on August 7 and Road Safety Audit on September 11.
A NEW VISION FOR DOWNTOWN BATH - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Downtown Bath is the only place in the Lehigh Valley sitting at the intersection of five state roads. With that unique map comes unique opportunities and challenges.
Those roads funnel more than 12,000 vehicles a day past the doorsteps of the Main Street businesses, but they also create parking, pedestrian safety and traffic volume issues.
A Lehigh Valley Planning Commission yearlong study, unveiled Saturday, looks to maximize those opportunities while reducing the issues by recommending a more cohesive parking and traffic plan and accentuating the district’s historic character.
COMMENT NOW ON $534 MILLION IN SPENDING - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If you’d like to weigh in on how $534 million will be spent on transportation projects over the next four years, the time is now.
Two public meetings are scheduled to gather comment on a 2019-2022 Transportation Improvement Program that funds more than 115 road, bridge, trail, rail and transit projects.
The first came Wednesday, during an hour-long Planning + Pizza session at the 961 Marcon Boulevard, Allentown offices of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
A second chance comes at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 8, at the Bethlehem Area Public Library. Anyone who can’t make the meeting can still view the TIP and comment here online.
DRIVERLESS VEHICLES RAISE EXCITEMENT, QUESTIONS - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Some day on the not-too-distant horizon, fleets of automated vehicles may be shepherding people to work, shopping and daily activities, while driverless trucks make cross-country treks to deliver the growing amount of freight being created by today’s online consumers.
But every new opportunity offered by a coming sea change in how we get around is accompanied by a raft of questions that have no easy answers.
NEW PLANS TO REMEDY ROUGH RIDE ON ROUTE 33 AND I-78 - May 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Nearly $14 million in projects to repair three of the Lehigh Valley’s busiest roads will begin this summer, thanks to savings on other projects in the region.
The rough rides along sections of Route 33, Interstate 78 and Easton’s 13th Street interchange were slated for repairs beginning next year, but savings on projects in the current four-year, $458 million Transportation Improvement Program will enable construction for those projects to begin soon.
“These are three projects we had on the radar,” said Michael Rebert, PennDOT District 5-0 Executive. “Everything fell into place and we had some extra money in the fund.”
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR FUTURELV - June 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan will help prepare the region for disasters such as floods or hurricanes, while the Bike/WalkLV plan works to make the Lehigh Valley more welcoming to cyclists and pedestrians.
And even as an effort to make our communities more accommodating to older residents begins, plans are underway to expand and better connect an already-robust trail network.
Add to that a Coordinated Transit Human Services Transportation Plan that’s designed to provide better mobility to the region’s most vulnerable and an effort to map out $534 million in road, bridge, transit and trail funding over the next four years, and it becomes apparent that 2018 is a pivotal year in the shaping of the Lehigh Valley’s long-term future.
LEARN HOW DEVELOPMENT IS DONE - June 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Ever wonder how your community leaders decide how to spend your tax money? Or how that lot down the street got rezoned? Or maybe you’re a municipal worker who wants to know more about how local government works.
The 2018 Lehigh Valley Government Academy courses may be your ticket to knowing more about how your community works – and how you can work within your community.
This year’s schedule of courses begins in September with Community Planning. The 10-hour course will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on three successive Thursdays September 6, September 13 and September 20, at the offices of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Those sessions give a crash course in the PA Municipalities Code, the policies behind land use decisions and how to have a voice in your community. You can find more information and the registration form at http://www.lvpc.org/lvga.html.
2018 LEHIGH VALLEY AWARDS CALL FOR NOMINATIONS - June 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Is yours a community that really has it together? One that’s used sound planning and development or innovative thinking or uncommon cooperation to make the community better? Then we’d like to hear about it so we can recognize these achievements and show them as an example for what could work in other communities in the region.
The LVPC is calling for nominations for the 2018 Lehigh Valley Awards. These awards will celebrate planning and development projects in Lehigh and Northampton counties. Communities, organizations and professionals will be recognized for their work and commitment to creating a better Lehigh Valley at the LVPC's 2018 Lehigh Valley Gala & Awards ceremony on October 10, 2018 at University Center, DeSales University.
The awards guidelines and nomination form for 2018 are available at www.lvpc.org/lehigh-valley-awards.html.
For any questions, please contact Tracy Oscavich at toscavich@lvpc.org or 610-264-4544. Please note the deadline for submissions is July 20, 2018.
LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITIES BECOMING MORE RESILIENT - July 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Some communities intend to remove or relocate structures that have been repeatedly flooded, some will seek back-up generators to keep essential services running during blackouts, and many are taking steps to keep residents from dying from drug overdose.
The Lehigh Valley Hazard Mitigation Plan is designed to help communities from across the region prepare for disasters such as hurricanes, floods and the drug overdose crisis. The concept behind the Plan is simple: save lives and prevent property loss by preparing for disaster before it hits.
A working copy of the 2018 Plan is now available for public review at LVPC.org/hazard-mitigation.html, and two public meetings to discuss the working draft are scheduled for Tuesday, July 10. A noon Planning and Pizza session at the LVPC offices and a second meeting at 7 p.m. at the Catasauqua Municipal Building will give people a chance to comment on the draft. The plan remains in a 30-day public comment period through August 1.
LEHIGH VALLEY RESIDENTS VALUE OPEN SPACE - July 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lehigh Valley residents may live here to be close to family or work or urban areas like New York City, but they stay here because of its rural and open space character.
In our first regionwide survey in four years, 61% of residents surveyed said what they like most about living in the Lehigh Valley is its parks, trails and recreation activities. Running a close second, at 59%, is the region’s natural lands and farmlands.
“It really ties into what people see as the identity of the Valley, and their anxiety about what’s potentially being lost in this new economy,” said LVPC Principal Community Planner John von Kerczek.
Administered by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) and taken by nearly 1,200 people, our first Valleywide survey since 2014 has provided vital information that can be used as the LVPC drafts a new plan for the region.
FREIGHT SUMMIT TACKLES CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES - July 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
More freight through the region means more jobs, more businesses and more tax base.
More freight through the region means more trucks, more warehouses and more traffic.
Finding a way to balance those conflicting impacts was the mission of some of the nation’s top planning, government and industry experts as they gathered among 230 attendees last week at the first Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Summit, at Lehigh University’s Iacocca Hall.
As e-commerce and two-day delivery has helped make the Lehigh Valley the fastest-growing freight corridor in the country, PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richard led a daylong discussion that laid out the freight road ahead, and debated how to keep it from going off course. After explaining that the Lehigh Valley’s location within reach of 80 million consumers makes it’s one of the busiest freight corridors, she quickly got to the central question of the day.
SIGN UP FOR OUR PLANNING + PIZZA ON DEVELOPMENT - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Whether you love it for the economic growth it brings, or hate it for the traffic it causes, development continued to grow in the Lehigh Valley for the first half of 2018. From January to June, 195 plans were filed, keeping the region on its steady increase of new plans since the recession-induced bottom of 2012.
If you want a deeper look at what’s happening and what might be coming later, join us for our next Planning + Pizza at noon Monday, August 27 at the LVPC offices at 961 Marcon Boulevard. The discussion – and pizza – are free, but seats are limited.
COMMUNITIES OF DISTINCTION HONORED
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley map is dotted with municipalities that have helped make Lehigh and Northampton counties one of the most livable region’s in the state, but only a select few have been named Communities of Distinction by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC), for their commitment to planning excellence.
Those communities will now be able to share their honor with motorists entering their municipality to see new “Community of Distinction” road signs being presented to them by the LVPC.
The first presentation will be to 2017 Winner Catasauqua Borough.
TAKE LVGA CLASSES, GET PROFESSIONAL CREDITS - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Ever wonder how your community leaders decide how to spend your tax money? Or how that lot down the street got rezoned? Or maybe you’re a municipal worker who wants to know more about how local government works.
The 2018 Lehigh Valley Government Academy courses may be your ticket to knowing more about how your community works – and how you can work within your community.
And if you’re a planner, architect, municipal official or even attorney, the class may make you eligible to earn continuing education credits through the Pennsylvania Municipal Planning Education Institute.
This year’s schedule of courses begins in September with Community Planning. The 10-hour course will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on three successive Thursdays September 6, September 13 and September 20, at the offices of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Those sessions give a crash course in the PA Municipalities Code, the policies behind land use decisions and how to have a voice in your community. You can find more information and the registration form at http://www.lvpc.org/lvga.html. Class size is limited.
LEARN HOW TO MAKE YOUR COMMUNITY'S ROAD NETWORK SAFER - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Have you ever noticed that stop sign with the tree branch hanging in front of it? Or maybe you’ve wondered why the crosswalks in the business district are faded.
Those are the kinds of roadway issues you’d be trained to find during the daylong Road Safety Audit class offered through the Local Technical Assistance Program. The class will be offered for the first time in Pennsylvania, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., September 11th at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) offices.
LEHIGH VALLEY SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT SET FOR SEPTEMBER 21 - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The rules are changing for recycling and stormwater runoff and that figures to be more expensive for municipalities, businesses, property owners and residents.
The Lehigh Valley Sustainability Summit, hosted by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, will look to cut through some of the complexities of new government regulations.
The LVPC-sponsored summit, scheduled for September 21st at the Homewood Suites Center Valley, will include a session on Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) regulations. The session titled “MS4 and Your Property”, will be moderated by LVPC Director of Environmental Planning Geoff Reese. MS4 is a state program that forces most Lehigh Valley municipalities to abide by rules designed to reduce pollutants into streams through stormwater runoff.
FEDERAL BUILD GRANT WOULD FUND $38 MILLION TRAIL PROJECT - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The vision is clear: A scenic recreation and commuter trail that rivals San Antonio’s Riverwalk snaking along the Lehigh River, from Allentown to Whitehall Township.
It’s part of a $38 million project designed to close the largest gap along the 165-mile D&L Trail, connecting urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods along a 3.5-mile stretch that has been identified as Pennsylvania’s highest priority trail gap.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, with help from dozens of business, government and community partners, has applied for a $19.6 million federal grant to make it happen.
The Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant would be added to $18.4 million in matching funds that includes money from state grants, the City of Allentown and the Waterfront Development Company – the Jaindl Enterprises-owned company that owns the right-of-way and is building a $425 million business and residential park along Allentown’s riverfront.
FIVE LEHIGH VALLEY ROADS SLATED AS CRITICAL FREIGHT CORRIDORS - August 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With the Lehigh Valley taking its place as one of the nation’s fastest-growing passageways for the goods people order online every day, transportation planners are trying to move six high-traffic roads into a new federal program designed to improve freight movement.
Getting sections of Routes 22, 33,100, 222, 412 and 987 designated as Critical Urban/Rural Freight Corridors would be the first step in extending the existing Primary Highway Freight System that already includes all of Interstate 78 and the Northeast Extension of the Turnpike through the region.
The designation opens those roads to additional federal resources and policies designed to eliminate bottlenecks, reduce the cost of moving freight through the region and enhance efficiency of the freight network to make it more productive and reliable.
BETHLEHEM'S DISTINCTION A LONG TIME IN THE MAKING - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
For two decades, Bethlehem endured a distinction that its community leader would have preferred to avoid. As the nation’s second-largest steelmaker shed thousands of jobs and withered into bankruptcy, the city became a national symbol of the death of manufacturing.
However, it was how Bethlehem responded to the end of Bethlehem Steel that made it the first city named by Lehigh Valley Planning Commission as a Community of Distinction, in 2014.
Now Bethlehem will be able to share its honor with people entering the city with Community of Distinction road signs, presented Wednesday, September 12 to the city by the LVPC.
YOU'RE ALL INVITED TO HELP US CELEBRATE ACTS OF COMMUNITY AWESOMENESS - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Good planning, innovative development and inspiring community cooperation are happening across the region and we’d like you to help us celebrate at the 5th Annual Lehigh Valley Gala + Awards.
So, if you’re interested in seeing the best of the best in community planning, or maybe you’re involved in a project and hoping to hear your community’s name called, tickets are now available for the Oct. 10 event at DeSales University, but seats are limited.
You can register at http://www.lvpc.org/lehigh-valley-awards.html
These awards will celebrate planning and development projects in Lehigh and Northampton counties. Communities, organizations and professionals will be recognized for their work and commitment to creating a better Lehigh Valley.
HELP US BUILD A STRONGER REGIONAL PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE NETWORK - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The LVPC is embarking on a yearlong project to develop a pedestrian and bicycle masterplan designed to create a seamless network connecting every community in the region – and we need your help.
The goal of Walk/BikeLV is to create a high quality on and off road, trail and sidewalk system. The plan will address existing conditions, lay out a strategy to fill the gaps and map out a way to both pay for it and build it.
The goal is also to use public input to help build the plan, and that begins September 26 with the first meeting of the Multimodal Working Group, a committee of the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, that will oversee the effort, in partnership with the LVPC and consultants Tool Design Group of Silver Spring, Md. Toole Design specializes in pedestrian and bicycle masterplans, with projects dotting the nation from Boston to Austin to Seattle.
REGISTER NOW FOR THE EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA GREENWAYS & TRAILS SUMMIT - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone involved in planning, designing, hiking or marketing the Lehigh Valley’s trail network will have a chance to bolster their craft at the 2018 Eastern PA Greenways & Trail Summit, Oct. 1-2 at the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.
The event will include 19 breakout sessions over two days, a keynote speech by environmental conservation professional Laura Johnston and a lunchtime address by Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn.
The LVPC will conduct two presentations at the summit. LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley and Director of Environmental Planning Geoff Reese will present “Walk/BikeLV: A New Regional Vision for Trails as Transportation”, and LVPC Urban Design Planner Whitney Burdge and Senior Planning Technician Brian Hite will present “Connect the Dots for Stronger, Multimodal Communities.”
LVPC'S BRUCE RIDER IS A 2018 CFO OF THE YEAR - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
On a typical day, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission Director of Administration Bruce Rider might handle payroll, administrate planning funds for a region of 650,000 people, pay bills, review contracts, field staff questions and occasionally agree to be arrested for charity.
Sometimes before noon.
It’s the kind of versatility that comes with straddling the administration, finance and human resources functions at the LVPC.
For Rider, it’s the kind of versatility – and commitment – that’s made him Lehigh Valley Business’ Chief Financial Officer of the Year. Lehigh Valley Business, a website and weekly publication that focuses on business news in the greater Lehigh Valley region, will present the award to Rider during a September 12 event at the DeSales University Center.
CATASAUQUA CELEBRATES ITS DISTINCTIVENESS - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
A decade ago, Catasauqua faced the challenges of a struggling downtown, a vacant brownfield site and few prospects for new development.
That’s when borough officials decided they would lead the way for downtown rebirth. The borough bought the former Iron Works site and mapped out plans for a new Municipal Building complex that would serve as the anchor for the Waterfront Redevelopment Project.
Today, the $11.2 million police, fire and borough building is the centerpiece of a downtown where developers are now proposing an ambitious office, retail and residential development.
For that vision, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) named Catasauqua its 2017 Community of Distinction, and Monday the LVPC gave the borough a way to share its honor with people entering the borough.
TAKE FREE LTAP CLASSES, GET SAFER ROADS - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Have you ever noticed that stop sign with the tree branch hanging in front of it? Or maybe
you’ve wondered why the crosswalks in the business district are faded.
Those are the kinds of roadway issues you’d be trained to find during the daylong Road Safety Audit class offered through the Local Technical Assistance Program. The class will be offered for the first time in Pennsylvania from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. September 11 at the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) offices.
“This was added to the schedule because people have been requesting it,” said Brian Hite, Senior Planning Technician at LVPC. “We know there’s a need in the community. We’re lucky enough to be the first in the state to offer it.”
The first half of the class will be spent going over federal and state regulations, and how to spot road needs, and the second half will be spent in the field viewing examples of roadways where safety can be improved. The field work will include crash data analysis and experience at some of the busiest intersections in the Lehigh Valley.
A second class, Project Overview — also new to the schedule — will be offered September 13 at the LVPC. Project Overview gives municipal employees the tools they need to oversee projects being done by their crews or consultants.
Anyone interested in registering for either course can visit http://lvpc.org/ltap.html.
LTAP classes in the Lehigh Valley are now among the most attended in the state. More than 400 people took courses on the 2017-18 schedule, averaging 22.5 students per course — a more than 50% increase over the previous year, Hite said.
All classes are free, but seats are limited.
WALK/BIKELV IS COMING - October 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Imagine a region where roads, sidewalks, trails and transit all work in harmony. A region where most anyone can safely get from one end of the Lehigh Valley to the other without needing a car. A region where pedestrians, bicyclists and air quality are a priority.
That’s the goal of Walk/BikeLV, the Lehigh Valley’s first ever Active Transportation Masterplan.
The LVPC and partners that include PennDOT, the US Department of Transportation and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources last week kicked off a nearly yearlong study designed to provide a blueprint not only for how to connect the region’s sidewalk, trail, transit and road networks, but how to pay for it.
YOU'RE ALL INVITED TO HELP US CELEBRATE ACTS OF COMMUNITY AWESOMENESS - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
As major cell companies prepare to roll out their ultrafast 5G networks, the Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling last week that will help them build faster, while limiting the authority local governments have to control that rollout.
In a ruling lauded by cell carriers and protested by mayors across the nation, the FCC decided municipalities will have 90 days to approve or deny requests to place small cell wireless receivers, or 60 days if they’re being added onto an existing facility. If the local government misses the deadline, the wireless company has grounds to sue.
HELP US BUILD A STRONGER REGIONAL PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE NETWORK - September 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Sitting at the confluence of some of the region’s busiest roads, South Whitehall Township leaders had to determine how to grow, while preserving the township’s parks and open space, even as much of the Lehigh Valley’s commuting public passed through daily.
They developed a package of planning and zoning strategies that focused development around bustling arteries such as Interstate 78 and Routes 22, 309 and 222. The result has been smart growth such as Spring View Apartments, the Hills at Winchester and the Fields at Blue Barn Meadows that take advantage of existing infrastructure rather than building more. In addition, its role in developing a Jordan Greenway trail will provide people recreating or commuting a direct link to Allentown’s urban core and the Trexler Nature Preserve.
INTRODUCING THE LINK - November 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
It is 125 miles of multimodal trails that snake into most every corner of the Lehigh Valley, serving as recreation for some and commuting corridors for other, and another 100 miles of trails waiting to be added soon.
To this point, it’s been called the Lehigh Valley trail network, but now it is simply known as THE LINK.
A host of partners that included the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, Discover Lehigh Valley, Lehigh County, Northampton County, the LVPC, Lehigh Valley Greenways, PennDOT, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Wildlands Conservancy announced a major effort to raise awareness, community interest and money to enhance and grow the region’s trail network.
NEW SAFETY FOCUS TAKES AIM AT TRAFFIC DEATHS, INJURIES - November 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Every year more than 50 people are killed in traffic accidents in the Lehigh Valley and another 150 are seriously injured, but regional leaders are now increasing efforts to bring both of those numbers down.
Some of that new safety push will involve state-of-the-art designs to make the road, trail and transit infrastructure safer, but the biggest impact can be made by changing dangerous behaviors that leave drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and children at risk.
That was the message from traffic safety experts in Lehigh and Northampton counties last week during the LVPC’s Multimodal Working Group meeting.
“Transportation safety is an enormous issue in the Lehigh Valley,” said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley. “When people think about traffic, they think of only cars, but pedestrians and cyclists are part of traffic, so if we’re going to tackle this issue, we need to consider safety globally.”
MACUNGIE BOROUGH IS OUR 2018 COMMUNITY OF DISTINCTION - November 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Macungie Borough’s municipal neighbors have added thousands new homes and millions of square feet of warehouse space in the past decade.
That left borough leaders with a dilemma: Continue on their own track and hope the impact of thousands more trucks and cars didn’t overwhelm the borough, or get proactive in protecting the borough’s quality of life and historic character.
The borough chose the proactive approach by taking steps to insulate its historic downtown and make Route 100 – its literal Main Street – safer, while partnering with five neighboring communities in southwest Lehigh County to construct a roadmap for the future.
For those reasons, Macungie Borough was named the LVPC’s 2018 Community of Distinction, Wednesday during the 5th Annual Lehigh Valley Gala + Awards at DeSales University.
CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE WINNERS, PHOTOS AND COVERAGE OF
THE EVENTBUSHKILL TOWNSHIP'S DISTINCTION IS BALANCE AND COOPERATION - November 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Look across the horizon from many sections of Bushkill Township and you’re likely to see rolling fields of farmland or large swaths of wooded area. That more than 40 percent of the township is agriculture or undeveloped land is a source of pride for residents.
But that hasn’t stopped township leaders from partnering with neighboring communities more receptive to land development.
That willingness to balance its focus on preserving the township’s rural character with the needs of its neighbors made Bushkill Township the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s 2015 Community of Distinction, and earlier this month the LVPC gave the borough a way to share its honor with people entering the borough.
During a ceremony at the October Board of Supervisors meeting, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley and Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure unveiled steel signs emblazoned with the “Community of Distinction” title and logo, to be placed along borough roads and in parks.
OUR AGING INTERSTATES - December 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Pennsylvania’s more than 2,700 miles of interstate highways snake into every corner of the state, carrying 1.8 million commuters a day and making the Commonwealth one of the busiest corridors for all those consumer goods people are buying from their phones this Christmas.
With the fourth-largest interstate system in the country, including the 63 miles in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania has long been the envy of other states, but now its interstates are deteriorating faster than they can be repaired, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) Highway Delivery Division Chief Melissa J. Batula said during a report to the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) and Freight Advisory Committee earlier this month.
That includes Interstate 78 in the Lehigh Valley, where 62 percent of the roadway surface is rated to be in fair or poor condition, while just $8 million of the $259 million requested for “priority” projects has been programmed on the state’s 12-year plan for interstates.
LAST CHANCE TO GET YOUR PIECE OF THE $8.2 BILLION TRANSPORTATION FUNDING PIE -
December 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
After more than 80 people representing 49 Lehigh Valley municipalities, several non-profits and private citizens attended Open Call project meetings last week, the LVPC has scheduled a last chance Open Call, to give the remaining 13 municipalities, non-profits and individuals an opportunity to get their projects into the 20-year Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP).
The final Open Call meeting – and final chance to compete for a share of an expected $2.8 billion in federal transportation funding – will be held from 9 a.m.-10 a.m., January 3, at the LVPC offices.
Over the next two decades, an estimated $2.8 billion will be invested to maintain and enhance the Lehigh Valley’s transportation network, but getting on the LRTP is the only way a project, study or plan can get the kind of federal and state money that is currently being used to fund such projects as widening Route 22, rebuilding the Cementon Bridge or replacing a fleet of LANta buses.
SIGN UP NOW FOR 2019 LTAP COURSES - December 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
They’re informative, they’re free, they can help make your neighborhood safer and they may even save your community some money.
In its 10th consecutive year of partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, the LVPC is offering a slate of 12 Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) courses that run from February to November. The 2019 schedule includes two new courses to help municipalities devise plans to make their roadways safer and public facilities more accessible to people with disabilities.
HOW TO GET YOUR SHARE OF $2.8 BILLION IN TRANSPORTATION FUNDING - December 2018
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Over the next two decades, an estimated $2.8 billion will be invested to maintain and enhance the Lehigh Valley’s transportation network, but if your community wants a share of that pie, the time to act is now.
Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, part of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, Wednesday sent out an Open Call for Plans and Projects that could be added to the updated Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP).
Getting on the LRTP is the only way a project, study or plan can get the kind of federal and state money that is currently being used to fund such projects as widening Route 22, rebuilding the Cementon Bridge or replacing a fleet of LANta buses.
The current call for plans and projects will remain open until 4 p.m., January 25, 2019, but then the window closes until the next Open Call in 2023.
2017
PEDESTRIAN AND BICYCLE PROJECTS GET $1.3 MILLION - December 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
The Lehigh Valley Transportation Study (LVTS) issued $1.32 million in Transportation Alternatives Set-Aside (TASA) program grants Monday, after whittling more than $10 million worth of applications to five projects designed to make communities safer.
The grants are issued every two years for bicycle, pedestrian and transit-related projects not covered in the region’s four-year $458 million program that maintains the region’s road, bridge and transit networks.
THE FUTURE IS NOW - December 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
How soon will it be commonplace for people to summon driverless cars on their smartphones? How worried should factory workers be about being replaced by robots? And should your business be preparing for climate change?
These are among the questions expected to be tackled during the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s daylong “FutureLV – Big Ideas. Bold Conversation.” event on December 6 at Lehigh University’s Iacocca Hall.
PENNDOT WANTS A FEW GOOD INVENTORS - December 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
If you’re a municipal worker who has channeled your inner MacGyver, then the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wants to hear from you.
PennDOT has opened its annual Build a Better Mousetrap Competition, in search of municipal and road crew workers who have found innovative ways to solve problems. Anyone snickering at the state’s effort to inject some friendly competition into the exciting world of municipal maintenance might be interested to know that Lehigh Valley workers have gotten good at winning this thing.
PENNDOT WANTS A FEW GOOD INVENTORS - December 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Not everyone needs to know what type of road sign should warn motorists of a sharp curve or the exact design of a sidewalk wheelchair ramp, but if those things are in your job description, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has a course for you.
The 2018 Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) courses begin in January, and registration is now open for 14 classes that include the popular “Safe Driver” instruction and several new courses such as “Curves on Local Roads” and “Speed Limits and Speed Management.”
LVPC LAUNCHES DATA PROJECT - November 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Sixteenth century philosopher Sir Francis Bacon is credited with coining the phrase “Knowledge is Power”, but a 21st century update of that might very well say “Data is Knowledge”.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is launching a data project aimed at giving Lehigh Valley residents more of both. DataLV is envisioned as a statistical snapshot of the Lehigh Valley that can be updated as new data arrives, and married to the LVPC’s ArcGIS Online mapping database to provide people with a one-stop shop for information on everything from housing to transportation to healthcare to education.
LVTS CREATES BICYCLE-PEDESTRIAN-TRANSIT BOARD - November 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
With a growing number of people looking for ways to spend less time in their cars, the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study in October created the region’s first Multimodal Transportation Working Group.
The group will serve as an advisory board of the LVTS, not only giving greater voice to people advocating for more funding for alternative transportation, but helping the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission collect information as it devises the region’s first master plan for pedestrian, biking and transit, said LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley.
CATASAUQUA DISTINCTLY COMMITTED TO GOOD PLANNING - October 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Anyone who has ventured into the heart of Catasauqua Borough’s business district knows that it looks very different than it did just a year ago.
That kind of change didn’t come without vision and a commitment to solid planning principals, not to mention an $11 million investment.
Catasauqua was named the 2017 “Community of Distinction” Tuesday during the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s 4th Annual Planning + Development Gala at DeSales University Center.
LVPC FEATURED ON RCN TV - October 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Lights. Camera. Action! The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission was featured on RCN TV4 cable television’s “Community Spotlight.” During a 30-minute taping done Thursday, RCN Host Dan Mowdy dug into ongoing issues that included warehouse and apartment development across the region, farmland preservation and the Hazard Mitigation Plan being updated by the Planning Commission in 2018.
BUILDLV 2017 REVEALS SPIKE IN WAREHOUSE AND APARTMENT BUILDING - September 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
It is a mosaic that was 12 months in the making and when the Lehigh Valley’s 2016 development picture came into focus two things were clear: the region is in the midst of an unprecedented warehousing boom and developers are building five times as many apartments as single-family homes.
LVPC’s annual development report has become a must-read for municipal officials, real estate brokers, the economic development community and anyone who cares about how their community develops land. The full report includes a menu of interactive maps, designed by LVPC Senior GIS Planner Justin Barclay, that provide development data for every municipality.
Click here for the BuildLV report version
Click here for the BuildLV interactive version
LVPC PREPARING THE LEHIGH VALLEY FOR DISASTER - September 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
Even before Harvey and Irma arrived, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission was working on a plan to help the region better withstand the kind of destruction that swept through Texas and Florida earlier this month.
With help from a federal grant, the LVPC in August launched a more than yearlong effort to update a Hazard Mitigation Plan that will spell out how each of the Valley’s 62 municipalities should prepare and respond to both natural and manmade disasters. A process that will include input by community leaders, emergency management officials and private citizens from across the region is scheduled to yield a new plan by October of 2018.
NEW ROUTE 22 BRIDGE TO OPEN THIS FALL - September 2017
Matt Assad, Managing Editor
After more than a year of driving through construction along Route 22, Lehigh Valley motorists will soon get a chance to drive on a newly-minted bridge across the Lehigh River.
2016 and Earlier
3RD ANNUAL LVPC AWARDS HONORS REGION'S BEST IN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
This year’s 3nd Annual Lehigh Valley Planning & Development Gala and Awards had a celebratory air as over 250 partners, stakeholders, and community members gathered to commemorate 55 years of planning excellence by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC). The event, which took place on October 4, 2016 at DeSales University in Center Valley, also allowed the LVPC to honor seven local public, private and non-profit projects and one community for excellence in planning and development. Recounting the origins of regional planning’s in the Lehigh Valley in 1961, LVPC Executive Director Becky A. Bradley, AICP, kicked off the evening with a message that resonated with the audience: how good planning creates livable places. Shifting focus to the present and the future, Bradley raised thoughtful points about the region’s many achievements before announcing the exciting next chapter for the LVPC, the kick off to the regional comprehensive plan update at the end of 2016.
MOVELV: CONGESTION MANAGEMENT PROCESS
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) recently prepared an update of its Congestion Management Process (CMP). The CMP, required by federal regulations, is a performance-based approach to managing regional roadway congestion by identifying key congested locations and recommending targeted strategies and actions for reducing congestion at these locations. CMP strategies emphasize maximizing travel capacity on existing infrastructure through demand reduction and operational management strategies, as opposed to
simply increasing roadway capacity.
LIVABLE LANDSCAPES - LEHIGH COUNTY PARK, RECREATION, OPEN SPACE AND AGRICULTURAL LANDS PLAN
The LVPC is collaborating with Lehigh County to develop a Livable Landscapes plan, guiding future park, recreation, open space and agricultural land efforts within the County. The focus of the plan will be on environmentally-sensitive areas, farmland, trails, outdoor recreation, historic and cultural areas, economic benefits and the overall quality of life within Lehigh County.
A robust public engagement program includes a two-tiered steering committee (professional partners and municipal officials) and public meetings. The first public meeting for the project is a Planning + Pizza event at 12:00 noon, August 24, 2016. A review of the project scope and existing resources mapping will be presented. The plan’s vision for Lehigh County’s open space network will be discussed, which will define the desired future to be accomplished through the plan’s goals, policies and recommended actions. Your input will be critical to developing a Livable Landscapes plan that is implementable and reflective of the diverse and sophisticated community and economic needs of Lehigh County.
The plan will be completed by summer 2017. The project is being funded by the County and a grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. For more information on this project, contact Geoff Reese at (610) 264-4544.
<<LINK TO PROJECT PAGE>>
LEHIGH VALLEY BRIDGE CONDITIONS
Pennsylvania contains about 25,000 state-owned bridges, the third largest in the nation, and leads the nation in the number of bridges classified as structurally deficient. Each of those bridges is inspected on at least a two-year cycle, more often if a bridge is identified with serious deterioration. The safety of those bridges and the traveling public is paramount. If a bridge is found to be unsafe, it is closed. Bridges deemed able to carry only certain weights are posted with weight limits. The Lehigh Valley contains a total of 912 bridges, 656 (72%) are state-owned, while 256 (28%) are locally-owned. Bridges can be classified as functionally obsolete—a bridge that does not meet current design standards (i.e. substandard lane or shoulder width, vertical clearance, etc.), or structurally deficient—a bridge in which one or more of its critical components requires significant
maintenance and repair to remain in service and eventual rehabilitation or replacement to address deficiencies.
WALKLV: REGIONAL SIDEWALK INVENTORY
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission recently released its first ever sidewalk inventory, which offers an assessment of sidewalk connectivity and accessibility throughout the region. Sidewalk gaps represent a significant barrier to accessibility, and the WALKLV report attempts to help regional communities and organizations identify and promote an interconnected network of pedestrian-accessible transportation corridors.
LEHIGH VALLEY RETURN ON ENVIRONMENT - OUTDOOR RECREATION ECONOMIC BENEFIT
In December 2014, the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) completed the Lehigh Valley Return on Environment study, which documents the substantial economic value of regional open space. The purpose for the study is to show that through open space preservation, quality of life can be improved while saving tax dollars and growing the economy. The analysis includes four components—natural system services, air quality, outdoor recreation and property values. Each of these components will be highlighted in this and upcoming newsletters, with the first being Outdoor Recreation.
<<CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE>>
SOUTHWESTERN LEHIGH COUNTY MULTIMUNICIPAL COMPREHENSIVE PLAN UPDATE
The entire staff of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission has made remarkable progress in the last six months in advancing the update to the multimunicipal comprehensive plan for the Southwest Lehigh (SWL) Region. Consisting of the six municipalities of Alburtis, Emmaus, Lower Macungie, Lower Milford, Macungie and Upper Milford, this partnership first emerged over a decade ago, culminating in the region’s first shared comprehensive plan, released in 2005. While this plan helped to galvanize collaboration and continued conversations among key issues that the six municipalities face, it is now showing its age, so inevitably it cannot account for some of the most prominent trends in land development and job growth over the last few years. Recognizing the need for an update, in 2014 the six municipalities cooperatively agreed to hire the LVPC to revisit the multimunicipal comprehensive plan, and through the help of substantive grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the LVPC spearheaded an intensive community engagement process that began in earnest in late 2015 and continued to the present.
CONGRATULATIONS TO LEHIGH VALLEY GRANT WINNERS
The Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) through the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA) recently announced the recipients of State Multimodal Transportation Funds. Competitive awards were available for projects totaling more than $100,000 but not more than $3,000,000. There were 418 projects statewide that received funding for a total amount of $152,414,748.
2017 TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM IN THE PIPELINE
Largest Investment in the Lehigh Valley’s Infrastructure
The 2017-2020 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) encompasses over $458 million in transportation infrastructure investment in the next four years. This plan targets the Lehigh Valley’s highest priority road, bridge, transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and rail infrastructure projects proposed to be developed with Federal assistance. Including over 60 projects, the TIP seeks to preserve the region’s assets, maintain and enhance mobility, reduce congestion, increase safety and operational efficiency, and promote partnerships.
REACHING 961 MARCON BOULEVARD BY FOOT: A PEDESTRIAN'S PERSPECTIVE
ON WALK -TO-WORK DAYA previous article detailed the trip that several LVPC employees made on Friday, May 20, biking from various points in the region to the LVPC offices on National Bike to Work Day. But the annual celebration of non-motorized commuting is officially called “National Bike/Walk to Work Day”, and this year it included another LVPC staffer who commuted to work. That’s right: Eric McAfee, AICP, Director of Community Planning, lives close enough to the offices that it is perfectly reasonable to walk. If all goes well, it takes him about 15 minutes.
In the previous article on Bike to Work Day, the bicyclists noted that, despite ample rights-of-way, the trek from their homes to the office in Hanover Township (Lehigh County) was often uncomfortable, due to a general lack of infrastructure specifically devoted to bicycles and the occasional motorist who did not show much regard for the two-wheeled vehicles sharing the road. From the perspective of walking along Marcon Boulevard and Irving Street, the conditions for pedestrians aren’t great either. Fortunately, Marcon Boulevard has a saving grace: a painted white stripe near the curb on the northern side of the street, which is clearly visible in the photo.
WORK ON WHAT YOU LOVE ...
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) staff did exactly that on Friday, May 20 when they took to the streets of the Lehigh Valley for National Bike to Work Day. Becky Bradley, Executive Director, and George Kinney, Transportation Planning Director, began their two-wheel trek to work in west Allentown led by Scott Slingerland, Coalition for Appropriate Transportation (CAT)¹ Director, and his colleague Jennifer Swann.
The six-mile journey ended 45 minutes later at the LVPC office near the Lehigh Valley Airport. Fellow LVPC colleagues, Tracy Oscavich and Brian Hite, were also along for the ride. Geoff Reese, Environmental Planning Director, also participated in the event, commuting more than 11 miles from his home in Bethlehem Township. Eric McAfee, Community Planning Director, walked nearly two miles from his home in Hanover Township.
LEHIGH COUNTY LIVABLE LANDSCAPES PLANNING EFFORT TO BEGIN
This summer the LVPC will collaborate with Lehigh County to develop a Livable Landscapes plan, guiding future park, recreation, open space and agricultural land efforts within the County.
The focus of the plan will be on environmentally-sensitive areas, farmland, trails, outdoor recreation, historic and cultural areas, economic benefits and the overall quality of life within Lehigh County. A robust public engagement program will be accomplished for the project. A vision for Lehigh County’s open space network will be created that will define the desired future to be accomplished through the plan’s goals, policies and recommended actions. The plan will be completed by summer 2017.
The project is being funded by the County and a grant from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
For more information on this project, contact Geoff Reese at (610) 264-4544.
<<LINK TO PROJECT PAGE>>
Lehigh Valley Planning Commission
961 Marcon Boulevard - Suite 310
Allentown, PA 18109
Phone: (610) 264-4544
Toll Free: (888) 627-8808