ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The clock is ticking to slow down vehicles before graduation season in Allentown. And the mayor says he wants his city to be the slowest in America.<\/p>\n
New speed cushions designed to slow vehicles went up Tuesday on Parkway Boulevard.<\/p>\n
It comes as the city works to cut down on an alarming number of pedestrian injuries and fatalities.<\/p>\n
City administrators want Malcom W. Gross Rose Garden at Cedar Creek Park to be safe for everyone who comes down to take graduation pictures this spring.<\/p>\n
Speed cushions were installed on Tuesday along Parkway Boulevard, and they’re being installed all over the city.<\/p>\n
Across Allentown, Traffic Control Specialist Bill DeLong says speeding is the biggest problem. Speed cushions can help prevent it.<\/p>\n
“It makes everyone pay attention to what’s going on,” DeLong said.<\/p>\n
DeLong says there were seven pedestrian fatalities in the city last year.<\/p>\n
Allentown is using grant money secured since 2023 to install speed cushions in five different locations across the city.<\/p>\n
“These are like a hard rubber material, and we bolt them into the street,” said Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk.<\/p>\n
The cushions are being placed across from heavily traveled parks and schools, including next to Union Terrace Elementary.<\/p>\n
“They’re fairly inexpensive, so a set is $2,500 so It’s an inexpensive way to make the city safer. I’d love to see them in other parts of the city,” said Mayor Tuerk.<\/p>\n
Speed cushions will be on Parkway Boulevard for 2 to 3 years, then, DeLong says, they can be picked up and re-used.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re not done. They find another home they can be recycled. That’s why it\u2019s a great product we can keep moving them around and re-installing them,” DeLong said.<\/p>\n
The next set will be laid down by next week on Ott Street, at the entrance to the Cedar Creek Pool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The clock is ticking to slow down vehicles before graduation season in Allentown. And the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,77363,77360,77362,77365,77361,22942,53508,9732,77364],"class_list":["post-172389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-cedar-creek-park","tag-graduation-season","tag-malcom-w-gross-rose-garden","tag-ott-street","tag-parkway-boulevard","tag-pedestrian-safety","tag-speed-cushions","tag-traffic-calming","tag-union-terrace-elementary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172389","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=172389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}