I\u2019ve become notorious for looking ahead and thinking, once we power through this busy period, things will ease up and we can stop sprinting so hard. Then the calendar doubles over laughing at me and I realize that\u2019s never happening. That largely describes 2025 turning to 2026.<\/p>\n
Last year was a hyperactive year in which the LVPC and our sister organization, the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study, completed a four-county, two-state climate resiliency plan, reclassified all 8,235 Lehigh Valley roads, worked to develop a housing attainment strategy, developed an industrial land use guide communities can use to prepare for uses like data centers, created an electric vehicle charging prioritization plan, performed nearly 1,000 development-related reviews, gave planning and transportation training to nearly 400 people and created an employment and population forecast that will serve as a planning basis for virtually all aspects of life in the Lehigh Valley \u2014 just to list a few projects.<\/p>\n
The \u201cthings will be easing up soon\u201d thought came a lot, but I think it\u2019s time to embrace the idea that we\u2019re a growing region in which our community partners have a lot of needs as we evolve.\u00a0That\u2019s certainly better than the alternative, where two-thirds of Pennsylvania counties are shrinking or have flatlined.<\/p>\n
As I come to terms with the reality that this is the new normal, here\u2019s a list of upcoming projects we\u2019ll be tackling in 2026, including several that were started last year:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Passenger rail: The Lehigh Valley Passenger Rail assessment began to chug forward in 2025 as state Sen. Nick Miller and former Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong announced that $300,000 in state money would be added to $100,000 in county money to fund a Phase 2 study that is part a 14-step, 10-12-year process of trying to re-establish passenger rail service in the Lehigh Valley. In 2026 and 2027 we\u2019ll oversee the study that will identify an operator, determine the route \u2014 Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia or Reading \u2014 and begin to set goals, objectives and evaluation criteria for the system. The phase will take 12-16 months to complete.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Housing strategy: The LVPC, Urban Land Institute and Lehigh County will complete and release The Lehigh Valley Housing Supply and Attainability Strategy in the spring. Northampton County, a planning partner, is rounding out the effort, along with all 62 local governments, school districts, nonprofit and private sector leaders charting a clear, multi-prong path forward to erase a 9,000-unit regionwide housing shortage. Everyone needs a home and the Housing Strategy will provide achievable ways of increasing housing for all income levels, and in locations that support the needs of everyone.<\/p>\n
\u2022 E-plan: The Electronic Submission Portal is an essential resource for modernizing planning communication across the region. Plan review applicants will for the first time be able to submit projects online, and the portal will also be used for data requests, information sharing, grant consistency letters, and municipal ordinance and plan submissions. This helps the local governments, LANTA, state agency partners, sewer and water authorities, applicants and the Commission coordinate quickly and increase transparency and access to development, ordinances and plans.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Route 22: Thanks to $1 million in funding arranged by Senator Miller and PennDOT Secretary Michael Carroll, in 2026 we\u2019ll be developing a Route 22 plan that will include identification and prioritization of needed improvements that prepare the region\u2019s most critical corridor for better congestion management, safety and mobility, while improving environmental quality and economic mobility. The Route 22: Mobility, Safety and Congestion Management Plan, also known as the \u201cWhat to Do With 22 Plan,\u201d is due in December.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP): A four-year, $543 million investment portfolio for the next four federal fiscal years is being prepared. This TIP includes more than 100 road, bridge, trail and community projects in every corner of the Lehigh Valley. Congressionally directed funding to the region is the budget for projects like the Tilghman at Route 309 interchange, rehabilitation of the Hill-to-Hill bridge and supports LANTA capital investments. The plan takes effect Oct. 1.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Congestion Management Plan: The LVPC is evaluating more than 300 road corridors, and applying a complex scoring system, to determine where investments should be made to reduce congestion across the regional transportation network. The analysis will help prioritize projects in the Lehigh Valley\u2019s 25-year, $4.4 billion Metropolitan Transportation Plan and four-year TIP.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Safe Streets 4 All: With help from an $800,000 U.S. Department of Transportation grant, planning will focus on all 62 Lehigh Valley municipalities to identify projects for investment to address pedestrian, bicycle and vehicle safety. The program is designed to prevent injuries and fatalities, while promoting all modes of transportation.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Focused Water Planning: The LVPC will continue the multi-year project of updating the Lehigh Valley\u2019s Act 167 Stormwater Management Plan for the 15 watersheds in Northampton and Lehigh counties. The project is the first time in the region and the largest initiative in the commonwealth to create a single, global plan that covers all watersheds, protecting water quality, while preventing flooding and property damage.<\/p>\n
\u2022 FutureLV: The Regional Plan: In what will be an all-hands-on-deck approach, the LVPC will be building on the data and analysis work of 2025 to update FutureLV, the bi-county comprehensive plan and metropolitan transportation plan, designed to set the land use, environmental, community services, economic and transportation direction to carry the Lehigh Valley to 2050 and beyond. In addition, to beginning the single, common strategy for the region, it lays out the next 20 years of transportation investments. The plan will be released in 2027.<\/p>\n
So no, things aren\u2019t slowing down. People, businesses, jobs, refined infrastructure management systems, preparation for new and emerging land use, and much more underpin why planning is more important than ever.<\/p>\n
In the 250th year of this nation, it\u2019s important to reflect on what our own Benjamin Franklin embedded as a keystone of our national values: planning. Franklin famously observed, \u201cBy failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.\u201d We certainly are preparing and will be prepared and our work ahead reflects a region that\u2019s growing, investing in itself to\u00a0ensure long-term success. Sprinting may be the new normal, but at least we\u2019re running with purpose and in the right direction.<\/p>\n
This is a contributed opinion column. Becky Bradley is executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. She can be reached at planning@lvpc.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve become notorious for looking ahead and thinking, once we power through this busy period, things will ease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,60,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-106982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-business","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}