PennDOT Hosting Public Meeting On New Falls Road Sidewalks

State planners will host a meeting next week to discuss the addition of sidewalks and accessible curb ramps along New Falls Road.

PennDOT officials said they will hold their meeting at the Middletown Municipal Center at 3 Municipal Way in the Langhorne section of the township on Monday, March 5 at 7 p.m.

The meeting will update the public on the plan to add the new sidewalk and ramps along a nearly mile-long section of New Falls Road between Durham Road and Bristol-Oxford Valley Road in Bristol Township and Middletown. The much-needed addition is aimed at improving pedestrian safety.

Officials said they are looking to also gather input from the public during the meeting.

Bristol Township resident Sharon Rearick and volunteers from nonprofit Sidewalks Are For Everyone have fought to add sidewalks to busy New Falls Road since 2012. Rearick’s son, John, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while walking home from a nearby bar along New Falls Road between Veterans Highway (Route 413) and Bristol-Oxford Valley Road in summer 2012.

Bristol Township and Middletown officials have signed letters of intent for the project.

Bids for the project are expected to be opened in late 2018 or early 2019, PennDOT officials said. However, previous estimates have pegged the project as costing about $1.7 million.

In 2016, a roughly $300,000 project in Falls Township added a concrete and asphalt sidewalk along New Falls Road between Vermillion Drive and Penn Valley Drive. The project was planned to improve pedestrian safety in the area near Pennsbury High School.