Can Milford traffic be calmed?

By CHARLES BUTERBAUGH

MILFORD, PA — Over the past century, pedestrians and bicyclists in many American towns had to accommodate traffic systems that gave precedence to automobiles. Seniority alone was no contest for the energy of industrialization or the luxury of commercialism, and the wheels of car culture drove traditional means of passage up against town walls.

On February 24, the Milford Enhancement Committee (MEC) hosted journalist Tom Hylton to discuss traffic calming methods and planned community growth. Author of “Save Our Land, Save Our Towns: A Plan for Pennsylvania,” Hylton won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for his editorials that advocated preservation of farmland and open space. He presented an exhaustive slide show cataloguing towns in Europe and the U.S. that have preserved their streets as equally shared public spaces.

“Mr. Hylton confirmed the direction that the committee has taken to invest in public areas,” enhancement committee chairman Richard Snyder said. “Vehicles have been allowed to dominate the public spaces.”

Hylton described particular traffic calming methods that have worked in towns like Asheville, NC and Ft. Collins, CO. and his hometown of Pottstown, PA, the first borough in the state to approve back-in, angled parking.

This method slows traffic since drivers must heed parking cars while moving in a single lane. Further, simple geometry proves that angled parking provides more spaces per square foot than parallel parking, and it prevents drivers from stepping into a busy street when they exit their cars.

Other methods include designated bike lanes, more prevalent trees along town streets, pedestrian medians, expanded sidewalks, median barriers that force cars to decelerate and move to the right as they enter a town, and roundabouts that keep cars at a consistent speed. While some of these may not be practicable in Milford, each method bolsters Hylton’s vision of towns as public spaces that should look and feel like parks.

“Town streets should serve as outdoor rooms with buildings as walls and tree canopies of green as roofs,” Hylton said. “Alternative use of a town’s main street involves shifting the purpose from moving cars quickly to creating safe places for people.”

This shift, he said, increases the tourism potential of the town.

“Traditional towns will be popular in the future because of growing traffic patterns. In order to market towns as niche historical communities, we must preserve them,” Hylton said. Such preservation not only improves the appearance of a town, it works to establish a community in which people are encouraged to take back control of local planning, he said.

Town streets exist under the jurisdiction of PennDOT and Hylton said that it is the responsibility of town planners and code officers to present alternatives.

Snyder favored the idea of back-in angled parking as a means of slowing traffic as it enters town from the east.

“By transforming this space, drivers would observe their arrival in town at Bennet Ave., near the government center instead of later at George Street,” Snyder said.

“The general feeling was that this was a beneficial education session that will help us look at the successes of other towns and see what the potential is for Milford to address similar problems,” Edgar Brannon, Jr., director of Grey Towers National Historical Landmark said.