Richland Township, a semi-rural community located in Northern Allegheny County, PA desired to  address operational issues at the intersection of E. Ewalt Road along the Route 8 Corridor.  The Township’s goal was to enhance capacity and safety at the intersection through a systematic complement of improvements. During the study phase, the operational factors of the intersection as well as potential mitigation measures and alternatives were investigated.

SERVICES PERFORMED
Trans Associates developed roadway design plans for approximately 1,900 feet
along Route 8 with improvements including:
• Providing northbound and southbound auxiliary left turn lanes;
• Providing a northbound auxiliary left turn lane into a nearby residential side street;
• Installing new accessible sidewalk connections between the adjacent neighborhoods and retail development;
• New traffic signal installation with optimized operation.

The Township was committed to funding the project and investigated shared-cost options for construction. Since PennDOT was  interested in the project to both increase capacity and safety in the corridor the project was converted from a Highway Occupancy Permit to a PennDOT Design Development/Design Build Project to accomplish the construction. Trans Associates was retained by Richland Township to take the lead on all of the design improvements for this project. The project included major utility relocations in the study area. Significant right-of-way and property acquisition was required including obtaining utility easements and right-of-way as needed. Trans Associates performed data collection, traffic studies, roadway improvement recommendations, roadway design, drainage design, right-of-way investigation, and PennDOT coordination.