Roadwork DME

CRANBERRY TWP — At Thursday’s board of supervisors agenda preparation meeting, township manager Dan Santoro provided updates to the ongoing improvement project on Franklin Road by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Santoro said PennDOT has communicated to the township that Mars Road will be closed between June 17 and July 5 for the project work.

“This project has been a bit of a challenge,” said Santoro. “Candidly, it’s going to continue to get more challenging as the summer goes on.”

There will be a series of closings to accommodate road work, he said.

In addition to both segments of Mars Road closing at some point, Hillmont Drive and Franklin Road off of Route 228 will also experience closures toward the end of summer.

“In the end, the improvements are much needed,” said Santoro. “It will just take us a little bit of time to get there.”

Earlier in the meeting, a resident of the township commented to express his frustrations with the traffic backups formed as a result of the road work. The resident inquired why there was no detour set up through Peters Road.

“That’s a PennDOT run project and I can’t speak to that,” said Bruce Hezlep, chair of the board of supervisors, in response.

The comment briefly turned into a longer exchange when the resident asked what would happen next.

Santoro said the township is in constant contact with PennDOT and all public concerns are relayed to the department.

“We’re talking with the state regularly on trying to keep traffic flowing,” said Santoro. “We don’t have a whole lot of influence on that.”

When the resident continued to push back, Hezlep intervened and said, “We’re not going to debate this. I understand your frustration. It’s on my way to work too.”

Hezlep said township officials will take the resident’s comment under consideration and talk to him after the meeting.