CRANBERRY TWP — U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., today announced that more than $1.75 million in federal money is coming to the township for improvements to heavily-congested Freedom Road.

Specter said the federal funding, part of this year's Senate Transportation Appropriations bill, isn't official yet though it's "about as close to guaranteed as you can have it." The bill is scheduled for a vote in early March and must be approved by Congress and the president.

The senator spoke to a packed room in the United Methodist Center on Freedom Road.

<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE64926219.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>He said the $2 million project will widen the road to four lanes and add several new traffic signals on Freedom Road from its intersections with Haine School Road and Haldeman Drive, a stretch of road nearly one mile long. The project also calls for the widening of a bridge over the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 2010.Cranberry will pay whatever part of the project not covered by the federal funding.The heavily-traveled road is drastically in need of improvement. A recent township study of the road found that more than 24,000 vehicles travel the road each day, which is 238 percent more than the roadway's designed capacity.