{"id":64776,"date":"2025-12-19T00:22:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/64776\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T00:22:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:22:26","slug":"lehigh-valley-passenger-train-service-study-gets-good-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/64776\/","title":{"rendered":"Lehigh Valley passenger train service study gets good news"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than a year, the process to bring back passenger rail to the Lehigh Valley appeared to be stalled<\/a> on the first of a 14-step process.<\/p>\n

For the second step, a mandatory feasibility study, the Lehigh Valley Transportation Study and area officials needed to find $400,000.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, state Sen. Nick Miller and Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong announced that the money has been raised. The state will provide $300,000, while Lehigh County will provide the additional $100,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe critical investment by the commonwealth and Lehigh County allows LVTS to move forward with this critical initiative,\u201d said Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, which hosted a news conference Thursday in its Allentown headquarters.<\/p>\n

Bradley said this step will include identifying an operator for the passenger rail system, determining a partner market \u2014 Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia or Reading \u2014 and beginning to set goals, objectives and evaluation criteria for the system. It will also establish a formal coordination process with the Federal Rail Administration and a formal LVTS project management structure.<\/p>\n

The phase will take 12-16 months to complete. Because of federal regulations, all steps must be followed in order, Bradley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo keep the Lehigh Valley at the forefront of the commonwealth, we must invest in additional modes of transit that connect people to jobs, education and opportunity as we continue to rapidly grow,\u201d said Miller, D-Lehigh. \u201cWe need a comprehensive strategy that addresses congestion, travel times, and connectivity. Restoring passenger rail is about creating opportunity and improving quality of life for future generations. This study will help ensure we grow sustainably, benefiting all residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first step, an analysis that was provided by PennDOT and consulting group WSP, was released in March 2024<\/a>. It identified potential routes and laid out the full process, which could take up to 15 years.<\/p>\n

Armstrong, whose term as executive is done at the end of the year, said moving passenger rail forward was a priority for Lehigh County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never gave up on it, what could the future be?\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cI probably won\u2019t be around to ride a train from Allentown, but if we don\u2019t do something now, we won\u2019t get there. So it became very, very clear to us. When Sen. Miller called me, and we called some other people, we got it done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud because this is another one of the things that I know about my board [of commissioners] and the future county executive [Josh Siegel], we\u2019re all on board for this, because this is the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the delay?
\nLehigh County was willing to split the Phase 2 cost with Northampton County during the summer of 2024, when it was estimated at $450,000.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

However, Northampton failed to include the money in its annual budget that was approved in November 2024. The $225,000 contribution was to come from Community and Economic Development Response Grants, but county Executive Lamont McClure said that money was to be used for agency nurses at Gracedale, the county\u2019s nursing home. In the budget he presented to council, he had no money set aside for the rail study<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, it appeared the project had stalled until Thursday\u2019s announcement.<\/p>\n

Even though she wasn\u2019t present at the news conference, incoming Northampton Executive Tara Zrinski \u201cappreciates\u201d passenger rail, Bradley said.<\/p>\n

Bradley said the LVTS will look at all forms of transportation as the Lehigh Valley\u2019s population continues to grow by 4,300 people per year and the highways get more crowded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith more people and more workers, the congestion in the New York and Philadelphia metros we\u2019ve avoided for so long is starting to come here,\u201d she said. \u201cDrivers are already logging almost an additional 1 million more vehicle miles per day on Lehigh Valley roads compared to a decade ago, and that number will only continue to rise as more people move here, and more people work here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need every option on the table in order to manage, let alone improve our transportation system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tony Iannelli, president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the region has grown in his lifetime enough to imagine having such luxuries as the return of rail travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking about the Valley and how we had evolved,\u201d Iannelli said. \u201c We were all about pulling ourselves out of this post industrial revolution, and becoming something. And now we\u2019ve become more than I ever dreamed. Now we can dream even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than a year, the process to bring back passenger rail to the Lehigh Valley appeared to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,60,433,182,139,434,28,432,2155],"class_list":{"0":"post-64776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-lehigh-county","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northampton-county","16":"tag-pennsylvania","17":"tag-top-stories-tmc","18":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64776","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=64776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}