DICKSON CITY, Pa. — Turning in or out of Bowman Street in Dickson City can be a bit hairy for drivers with heavy traffic on Main Street.
In 2019, the borough was granted state money to add a traffic light and modify the streets and sidewalks to make them safer.
Dickson City Borough Manager Cesare Forconi showed Newswatch 16 the plans for the project that should prevent some of the traffic issues in this area.
"There are some telephone poles, some utility poles, that are in conflict with someone who pulls up to the stop sign to get a line-of-sight view, where it makes it very narrow for other vehicles to turn down Bowman Street," Forconi said.
The project was put on hold during the pandemic, and just when things got moving again, Forconi says they had to put the brakes on it one more time.
"At the end of 2022, we put it out for bid. We had three bidders, and they all came in about $300,000 higher than what we had funding for. So, we went back to PennDOT, and we talked about what can we do. What's the best way to proceed in order to get the additional funding?"
This traffic light will also have technology that allows first responders to get to an emergency faster and safer.
"When traffic backs up, you have a new vehicle trying to get through, and it actually changes the light to green in the direction that the millions of vehicles are coming from, so it gets traffic moving rather than sitting still," explained Dickson City Police Chief William Bilinski.
Chief Bilinski says the Bowman Street intersection isn't far from another high-volume traffic area with the same technology where Main Street meets Viewmont Drive.
"This is one of the busiest intersections in Dickson City and we're through here numerous times a day—various calls, whether it's calls for service, when a vehicle crashes, EMS calls coming off the interstate. It's pretty important that we have these things for the safety of the public as well as the officer."
Officials hope to break ground on this project later this year.