{"id":94179,"date":"2026-01-23T01:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T01:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94179\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T01:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T01:53:09","slug":"route-22-widening-6m-announced-for-project-between-airport-road-and-fullerton-ave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/94179\/","title":{"rendered":"Route 22 widening: $6M announced for project between Airport Road and Fullerton Ave."},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to ease congestion on a busy stretch of Route 22 through the Lehigh Valley received a boost on Thursday with a $6 million funding announcement.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll visited the Allentown offices of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to help announce the federal award for widening the highway from four to six lanes between Airport Road and the Lehigh River bridge near Fullerton Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you all know, Route 22 is considered Lehigh Valley\u2019s main transportation corridor,\u201d he said. \u201cI know we have other parallel routes that run through the Lehigh Valley, but 22 is, in essence, Lehigh Valley\u2019s Main Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

The planning commission\u2019s Lehigh Valley Transportation Study Joint Technical & Coordinating Committee on Wednesday<\/a> amended its transportation improvement budget to account for the money through the PennDOT Central Office\u2019s National Highway Performance Program.<\/p>\n

This stretch of highway through Lehigh County\u2019s Whitehall and Hanover townships is the Lehigh Valley\u2019s busiest, carrying some 110,000 vehicles a day during the work week, according to the LVPC.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we\u2019re announcing a $6 million investment to purchase the land, the right of way, as well as move utilities and finish out the engineering design to get the three lanes from Fullerton, at the intersection there, all the way over to Airport Road and hopefully tying into the (Route) 378 part as well,\u201d said state Sen. Nick Miller, D-Lehigh\/Northampton. \u201cThat investment is long overdue, decades in the making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transportation officials hope to coordinate this Route 22 widening with planned improvements to the Fullerton Avenue interchange. A new Lehigh River bridge in this area of the highway opened in July 2019<\/a> as part of a $64.7 million project. That work also included a new Fullerton Avenue bridge, removal of the Fifth Street bridge, and redesigning the Route 22 interchanges with Seventh Street\/MacArthur Road (Route 145) and Fullerton Avenue in Whitehall Township.<\/p>\n

PennDOT spokesman Ron Young Jr. confirmed construction costs for the Route 22 widening at an estimated $28 million and for Fullerton Avenue at an additional $32 million. <\/p>\n

Plans include tying in Riverside Drive in Allentown through Wood Avenue to the Fullerton Avenue interchange, LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley said.<\/p>\n

The estimated timeline for the Route 22 widening and Fullerton Avenue work indicates construction starting in late 2029 and lasting two to three years, said Christopher Kufro, PennDOT\u2019s local District 5-0 executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to maintain traffic,\u201d he said, touching on the project\u2019s complexity. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be phasing between phases. So as always, though, that\u2019s an estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Master planning is ongoing for more extensive improvements to Route 22 between its split with Interstate 78 in Upper Macungie Township and the New Jersey border at Easton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to ease congestion on a busy stretch of Route 22 through the Lehigh Valley received a boost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-94179","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94179","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=94179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}