435 Hamilton Street  
Allentown, Pa. 18101  
Allentown  
Minutes - Final  
City Council  
Wednesday, April 2, 2025  
6:00 PM  
Council Chambers  
Special Council Meeting to Adopt Resolution 38, Approving the 2025 Safety Streets and  
Roads for all Action Plan  
Roll Call  
7 -  
Present:  
Cynthia Mota, Daryl Hendricks, Ed Zucal, Natalie Santos, Ce-Ce Gerlach, Candida  
Affa, and Santo Napoli  
RESOLUTIONS FOR FINAL PASSAGE (To be Voted On):  
15-7603  
R38  
A resolution of the City of Allentown, approving the 2025 Safety Streets and  
Roads for all Action Plan for the City of Allentown and granting effectivity of  
the adopted plan.  
Administration  
Sponsors:  
Attachments: R38 Safety Action Plan Adoption  
Allentown SS4A_Presentation_final_4-1-25_.pdf  
Vision Zero Doc.pdf  
Resolution #31031.pdf  
Mr. Daryl Hendricks thanked Mr. Hanlon and stated Mr. Mayor and we have  
some special witnesses here tonight to testify to this.  
Mayor Matt Tuerk stated that he will be brief so that they can have the full  
time to make a presentation, but wanted to introduce the concept. The city  
received a grant from the US Department of Transportation as part of the  
bipartisan structure of law under the Safe Streets for All Program to  
develop a Safety Action Plan for the city of Allentown to make our  
roadways safer. He stated that they contracted with Michael Baker  
International to prepare that Plan for us that began just about a year ago.  
He stated that tonight, representatives from Michael Baker are going to do  
a formal presentation of the Plan to City Council. He stated that they will  
asked them to adopt the Plan. He stated that he was grateful to see  
Council President Hendricks and Councilman Zucal this morning at a  
Press Conference announcing the Plan and one of what he has called one  
of the worst intersections in the universe at the entrance to Lehigh Parkway.  
He stated if you know, you know. He stated that it is not a great  
intersection. There are many other tough intersections in the city of  
Allentown. There are many other dangerous roadways in the city of the  
Allentown that have claimed the lives of too many of our residents over the  
years. They are prompted to take action and put ourselves in a position to  
make systemwide changes to the transportation network in the city of  
Allentown that will make it safer for all of our residents and anybody that  
wishes to visit the city of Allentown. The Plan was prepared under the  
department of Public Works with the expert guidance of Mark Shahda and  
his team, including Gabrielle Heiney, Jaime Delgado, and Megan Brehm.  
He stated that they are all here tonight and can answer additional  
questions, but he wants to hand it over to the team of Michael Baker  
International who helped us develop this Plan with help from the community.  
He stated that he will turn it over to Chris and said thank you.  
Mr. Daryl Hendricks said thank you Mayor and stated good evening.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated that he is a professional Civil Engineer and  
Certified Planner with Michael Baker and he is here with Samantha  
McLean, their Community Engagement Lead to go through the summary of  
the Safety Action Plan. He stated that tonight, they are going to give them  
a presentation and go over the big picture of the issues, the process we  
use to complete the Plan over the last year or so and some examples of the  
conceptual improvements that are included in the full plan. He stated a  
recommendation to the city moving forward and some next steps, and  
obviously here to answer any questions you have. He stated to tell them  
about the big picture and why they are here. He stated between 2019 and  
2023, there were over 8,000 and 600 crashes within the city and 284 of  
those were very serious injuries of fatalities. He stated that 69 of those  
high energy crashes were pedestrian related and 11 resulted in deaths on  
our city streets. He stated moving on, really it's just not about numbers,  
really right. It is about our families, about our friends and neighbors, it's  
about our children who use these streets on a daily basis. These are not  
just numbers, these are the real people and these incidents have  
tremendous impact on the people in the city. He stated that they need to  
do something about these crashes and these deaths that happen on our  
city streets. He stated that as they are all well aware, the city passed a  
Vision Zero Resolution in recent months and that really is to try and change  
the mindset around transportation. Traditionally, decades ago the  
traditional approach was based on the idea that the deaths on our  
highways and on our streets are inevitable. The driver must be a perfect  
driver and not make mistakes. It is really our job to prevent every crash,  
every fender bender and it is a responsibility of the system. It is really the  
individuals who that use this system, it is their responsibility to drive safely.  
If there was an issue on our roadways, it is just too expensive to change.  
He stated that they all know that they can do better than that. The new  
vision is try to bring deaths on our roadway systems down to zero. He  
stated that is the Vision Zero philosophy. The idea is that deaths are  
preventable on our roadway system. That humans and people on the  
system make mistakes. They need to design the system to try to be a little  
more resilient and loud for people to make mistakes and not have those  
fatal consequences. They want to make these improvements across the  
whole system. It is not just leaving it up to the driver. It is not just leaving it  
up to the Planners and Engineers or the maintenance folks. It's everyone  
has a roll in here to make our streets safer. In working with a  
multi-disciplinary steering committee, they came up with an Action Plan  
Vision and our vision for Allentown is that Allentown streets are safe and  
accessible for all community members who live, works or visit Allentown no  
matter the made of transportation or their background. He stated that by  
2030, there are zero traffic fatalities and zero injuries in Allentown. He  
stated that is their vision and said that Samantha is going to go into the  
process they used to develop the Plan.  
Ms. Samantha McLean thanked Chris and stated that they are going to go  
into the details of this Plan, but sometimes the process is often is just as  
important as the plan itself. She stated that they wanted to talk about how  
they came up with this Plan and there are really two components. The first  
being community engagement. The second is the data that they were able  
to source from a variety of sources. She stated going into Community  
Engagement and they really want to make sure that this Plan was grounded  
in the lives experiences of residents. She stated as Chris says, these are  
not numbers, these are people. They conducted a widespread outreach  
initiative using social media. She stated that it was actually on the slide  
before that. She stated social media, radio, business card drops at local  
stores and gathering places. An email blast over 100 stakeholders  
including some of the community organizations that are in the room tonight.  
She stated that they also did stakeholder engagement with those  
community organizations and spoke through the steering committee that  
met on a monthly basis to guide the process. Also, through targeted  
interviews and focus group conversations with organizations in both  
Allentown and a greater region that is working on these issues. In terms of  
the Community Engagement, she did a combo of online and in-person  
engagement. In terms of online engagement, they had a survey that  
received over 1,400 responses and 700 comments. They supplemented  
that online community engagement with in-person engagement doing six  
pop-up events and a variety of community events throughout the summer  
and the fall. The first set of the engagement events in the summer were to  
get the word out about survey and how people take the survey and they  
also wanted to share out in the fall what they did with the survey responses  
and where they were going with the Plan. It was an opportunity to regroup  
and validate our findings. She stated that some of the biggest safety  
issues that they heard about on the surveys in addition to people being  
able to pinpoint specific locations that they had problems and challenges  
with. They are also wanting to get general feedback about our biggest  
safety challenges in Allentown and speedy motorists that was said at the  
Press Conference earlier today. Speedy motorists by far and large is the  
largest safety concern in Allentown, followed by off-road walking and biking  
trails, lack of bike lanes, as one of the students mentioned today. She  
stated issued at bus stops and lack of ADA access at some points. She  
stated at the next slides they had some comments from the survey that  
added additional context and really reminded them that these are people  
responding by every kind of point they mapped or response they were  
given or there are a lot of stories behind it. She stated that this just  
captures some of this we heard about. People being always being in a  
rush, a lack of enforcement, concerns about a lack of a sidewalks in some  
places, street markings, etc. All this feedback really aspired their toolbox  
that of interventions and safety counter-measures that they are going to  
apply or that are mentioned in this plan. She stated that there are some  
recommendations of these counter measures on the screen right now that  
addresses community concerns that you just heard. The speeding in  
particular. In the top hand corner, they will go in order. You have like a  
speed board that is a vertical visual reminder to drivers to slow down and  
then on the top righthand corner you have a rectangular rapid flashing  
beacons or RRFBs. Once again, a visual or a vertical/visual reminder of a  
crosswalk so someone can slow down and allow pedestrians to cross. In  
the middle on the top row, you have an example of speed cushions, and a  
razed crosswalk is more like a horizontal, physical reminder to slow down,  
especially at key intersections. On the bottom left hand corner, is an  
example of a curb extension or a bump out. This brings the curb a little  
closer together to shorten the crossing distance. Oftentimes these curb  
extensions are applied in what they call an intersection day lighted. That is  
the image on the bottom left center where they are basically bringing the  
curb closer together and take away any obstacles., visual obstacles such  
as parked cars to make it easier to see the intersection. She stated and  
then finally on the bottom left hand side is an example of a road diet where  
you narrow lanes and take the existing road with and then you reconfigure  
those lanes and narrow the lanes which has been proven to slow traffic  
down. She stated that all of them are just examples of how they took what  
they learned from the community and really used that to guide some of the  
interventions that Chris is going to talk about in a bit.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated as Samantha mentioned, the second part of the  
process is looking at the data. He stated as they mentioned, they took five  
years of PennDot data with crash data in the city and basically developed a  
Heat Map as you see on this screen. Low areas of crashes are shown in  
blue and higher incidences of crashes are show in red and yellow. He  
stated that it just helps them visually understand where the focus of where  
the crashes are. Where they can focus their efforts for improvements. He  
stated that on the next slide, you will see the high injury network which is  
basically a small percentage of the streets in the city where the majority of  
the serious injuries and fatalities are happening. Just on the small portion  
of the city's streets over 3,000 crashes happen in that time period between  
2019 and 2023. He stated that you can see a small percentage of  
roadways represent a large percentage of the crashes that are happening.  
He stated on the next slide, they will see a slightly different version of this.  
Again, a high injury network. He stated those purple lines there, represent  
only six percent of the city streets in Allentown. He stated only six percent,  
but they represent 49 percent of the crashes. He stated that they can see if  
they have addressed improvements on these small percentage of roads.  
He stated only six percent then they can really have a positive impact on a  
high amount, high majority of the crashes in the city. He asked where were  
these roadways that were the issues. He stated on the next slide, you will  
see the top five corridors that really had the most issues from a crash  
perspective. He stated that they are talking about the Tilghman  
Streets/Union Boulevard Corridor where it represented almost 16 percent  
of the crashes on that network. He stated that then they had Hamilton  
Street, Hamilton Boulevard, and next is Number 2. He stated East  
Hamilton into Hanover Avenue, American Parkway and Lehigh Street.  
These top five crashes represented over a third of the crashes that  
happened in the city. Again, if we want to look at the roadways they really  
need to focus on first, to have the best impact, the best positive impact on  
crashes. He stated that this is going to be where they are going to focus  
their attention first. He stated just some more information about how they  
are doing with crashes and how safety in the city is going. He stated while  
they can see, unfortunately, they are trending in the wrong direction. In  
2019, they only had 37 high injury crashes. He stated 2023, they had  
almost double. They were up to 72. He stated as they can see, the trend is  
going in the wrong direction. They really need to make improvements to  
stop this trend and try to get them back to zero as indicated in the Zero  
Vision philosophy. He stated again, next more information as they were  
doing their safety analysis. They are trying to understand what kind of  
crashes are happening and where they are happening. He stated on the  
left about 57 percent of the crashes are happening at mid block locations  
and 43 percent of the crashes are actually happening at signalized  
intersections or other types of intersections. He stated that they need to  
look at both locations again, they need to look at a little more focused at the  
mid block locations. He asked what kind of crashes are they talking about.  
He asked who is involved. He stated as they can see 93 percent of the  
crashes are motor vehicles, with only about seven involving bicycles,  
pedestrians. He stated however, when you are talking about serious  
injuries and fatalities, our vulnerable users would which are the walkers and  
the bikers which represents 31 percent of those high injury crashes.  
Obviously, where there is an incident with a motor vehicle and a pedestrian,  
the pedestrian is going to lose out in that situation. He stated that they  
really need to pay more attention to taking care of our pedestrians and  
bicyclists when they are looking at high injury crashes in the city. He  
asked how are we going to do this. He stated so just for this presentation  
they are going to do a few examples of how they approach this in the Plan.  
He stated that he see folks can look into the Plan in more detail to see  
some of the more details and the roadways they looked into. He stated  
first, they are going to look at Tilghman Street. He stated that obviously,  
Tilghman was at the top of the list there. The injury network and what they  
did in the Plan, they basically looked at the existing conditions and try to  
identify one of the biggest challenges on the corridor. He stated on the  
Tilghman Street corridor, obviously they have a lot of pedestrian and  
motorcycle crashes. They have a lot of issues with intersection visibility.  
He stated as Samantha mentioned and you can see the photo in the  
middle, you can see people parked right up to the stop signs and right up  
to the edge of the intersections which blocks you and creates blind spots  
for people crossing and other motor vehicles that are at a four way  
intersection. He stated that is one of the issues there. They also have to  
look at and again, we have crashes on un-signalized intersections and mid  
block locations along the corridor. He asked how are we going to address  
this. He stated as Samantha mentioned there is a lot of tools in the tool  
box that can be the right tool for the right problem, right. He stated that they  
have a lot of different issues so they have to come up with the right  
solutions for these different problems. He stated some of the solutions that  
they are suggesting are a high visibility crosswalk. He stated that he wants  
the big piano keys style, kind of crosswalks, not just this thin white lines that  
go transverse across a road. He stated that they need better lighting at the  
intersections in their crosswalks. He stated that they definitely needs to do  
that corner clearance with the intersection day lighting. They are potentially  
looking at curb extensions and potentially using flashlights and beacons as  
well to address some of these concerns. He stated just to give them an  
example, the city is already doing this. He wants to give a good example of  
this sought of treatment that sits in the Arts Walk. He stated that they may  
have seen the rapid flashing beep in there. You already have a curb  
extension on the left. There is good lighting here, pedestrian scale as well  
as the overhead lighting and there is a decorative crosswalk in this  
particular location to raise the awareness of the motor vehicles to this  
actual crossing location. These are the examples of the what things we  
could employ on Tilghman Street. He stated moving on to the Hamilton  
Street corridor, some of the challenges that were identified through the  
Engagement and the data is speeding, intersection conflict points and a  
lack of safe pedestrian crossing locations. He stated so again, what are  
some of the tools that they can use to address those. They can look at  
better visibility and crosswalks, better lighting, using the beacons,  
potentially using a razed island in the middle of the road to address  
pedestrian crossing locations. He stated one big tool in the toolbox are  
modern roundabouts. He stated that they will look at these with a little more  
detail. One of the locations they are probably aware of that is a little bit of a  
challenge is the Hamilton Street and Ott Street intersection. They have a  
number of roadways all coming together and kind of a nuke screwed  
intersection configuration. A lot of pedestrian crossings. Things near the  
park. He asked how do we address something like this. One potential  
pretty major intervention they can do here to improve safety is a modern  
roundabout. He stated that they can reconfigure the intersection to do  
traffic calming, the improve safety, to improve pedestrian crossings, and  
also serve as a great gateway to the city as well. He stated as you can  
see on the lower right there is a rendering of what that ramrod would look  
like. He asked why would we want to use a roundabout. Roundabout are  
designed for slower speeds. They are designed for 25 to 30 miles per  
hour. Intrinsically all the speeds are slower so if there is any kind of crash, it  
is less severe. There is significantly less conflict points. You can see these  
images here on the right. A conventional intersection has 32 places where  
vehicles can conflict and 24 places where pedestrians can conflict with  
vehicles. A roundabout only has only eight conflict points for vehicles and  
pedestrian points. Intrinsically, the design of it makes it safer. Again, it has  
islands that allows for a safer pedestrian crossing and they have all proven  
tons of tons of studies that show these are reduced number of crashes and  
severity. He stated as he mentioned there is a traffic calming influence  
because of the slower speeds for the design. He stated believe it or not,  
they actually function better from a traffic flow perspective as well then a  
traffic signal. He stated so a real good tool that will really potentially use  
throughout the city. He stated moving on to the next slide, they had another  
suggestion about improving pedestrian crossings. Unfortunately, they were  
aware that there is a pedestrian killed at this location near 21st Street and  
Hamilton near the bridge. They also has an existing trail that comes out of  
Cedar Creek Park and there is a proposed trail that is going to go out to  
Union Terrace. This will be a great location for a formalized island crossing  
for pedestrians. He stated moving on to the last corridor is the Union  
Boulevard area. He stated that in this location, they have a very overly wide  
roadway and the lane configuration changes significantly throughout the  
corridor. It varies from two lanes to four lanes, back to two lanes throughout  
the corridor. He stated that they have seen a lot of speeding because of  
this overly wide roadway and again a lot of the issues with pedestrian  
crossings. Moving on to the next slide, what are the solutions that they are  
going to look at here. One idea is a road diet and stated as Samantha  
mentioned it is reconfiguring width of the road, narrowing lanes, potentially  
adding bike lanes and/or bus lanes on this corridor and making the lane  
configuration more consistent throughout the corridor. Improvements such  
as curb extensions with clearing out the corners with day lighting. Again,  
the improvements with the crosswalks, lighting, flashing beacons as well as  
roundabouts as potential tools in this corridor. On the next slide, they are  
aware of a crazy intersection on Airport Road and Union Boulevard. It is  
almost a six legged intersection with all the approaches there. A lot of very  
wide curb radiuses that increase speeds. A lot of issues with pedestrian  
crossings in the existing conditions. He stated so again, looking at the next  
slide and again, the roundabout would have been another good solution at  
this location to deal with a lot of the issues that were identified in the Plan.  
He stated moving on to their goals and recommendations.  
Ms. Samantha McLean stated that Chris is really the brain behind a lot of  
the Concept Plans and a lot of the physical improvements and they worked  
with the at the steering committee to come up with a set of goals and a lot  
of recommendations that work in tandem with those physical  
improvements. She stated that she will go over those goals and  
recommendations now. She stated that there are six goals, the first being  
to implement everything that Chris just talked about. Implement those  
proven safety counter measures system wide in those targeted locations  
along the high injury network. The second goal here is to integrate the safe  
systems approach and the Vision Zero approach into all aspects the city  
operations. It is being really intentional with how each of the departments,  
how each of the decision making bodies reviews and looks at aspects of  
their job, and making sure it aligns with the Safe System approach. The  
third goal is to utilize a monitor and evaluation framework to track the  
effectiveness of the implementation which they will talk about in a little bit.  
Using a dashboard or some sort of Annual Report mechanism to report  
back on how these interventions have worked and the fourth goal is to  
foster strong partnerships with residents and regional collaborations and  
for planning and funding. Working with all the residents that gave them  
feedback throughout this process and making sure that the continue to be  
in the loop. She is also engaging the regional stakeholders such a LANTA  
and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to make sure they are  
partnering any kind of funding opportunity. The fifth goal is to expand  
connectivity of the multimodal network so they have some bits and pieces  
there. She stated that they are really making sure they are connected in an  
integrated system. She stated lastly to create a multimodal network that  
supports the shift from driving to non-motorized forms of transportation and  
by expanding that. She stated then to support those goals and to realize  
those goals, they have over 20 recommendations on the screen there are a  
few examples that are split into four different focus areas. She stated  
system wide improvements. Those are physical improvements, process  
improvements or process and policies. Collaboration opportunities and  
then progress and transparency recommendations. She brought a copy of  
the Plan today just to show you in multiple pieces. There is a lot here and  
they are happy to answer any specific questions about these  
recommendations. She encouraged them to take a look and read through  
if they have specific interests in any of these recommendations and they  
can answer any questions as well.  
Mr. Daryl Hendricks stated alright.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated a couple more next steps. In a couple of more  
next steps, one was done.  
Mr. Daryl Hendricks stated thank you very much for your presentation. He  
stated that it was quite extensive and opened it up to his colleagues for any  
questions.  
Mr. Michael Hanlon stated that he has a few more slides.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated that he has a couple more things for you. He  
stated that one more thing that they wanted to remind everyone is when  
things are already happening, part of this process, the mayor actually  
helped them identify a funding opportunity and worked with the team to do  
a grant application and actually won $384,000 for the city to do a temporary  
quick build project. It is going to include traffic calming improvements on  
Jefferson Street. He stated that they talked about those at the Press  
Conference this morning. He stated that this will be an interim step before a  
full blown design project gets going in the next couple of years. They are  
also doing speed cushions on 12 roadways, near schools and parks as  
well as some intersections lines to clear out some of the corners on the  
high injury network. This is the project that the city's staff is working on now  
as a function of this study and hopefully will inform everything that they have  
done and all the recommendations they have moving forward. He stated  
really, when you go through the last slide and really looking for a few things  
for them to help them with tonight. He stated again the very first thing is to  
approve a Resolution and adopt a Plan and to help advance that  
demonstration project that he just talked about and to share it with the city  
residents through the website and the dashboard. The ultimate goal is  
assuming federal funding is still there for this program, there is a lot of  
finding that is in the program from Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill for a more  
implementation. He stated again, later on hopefully, they will have an  
opportunity to apply for more grants, whether at the federal level or state or  
local level. He stated working with LVPC to get some of these projects on  
the transportation tip and on the transportation improvement plan. Working  
with PennDot to get some of the larger Projects implemented and work  
with city staff to look at the Resurfacing Plan. This year and next year to  
see if any of these roads will be on the slate for resurfacing and maybe  
some of the recommendations from the SS4A Community Incorporated  
into those projects. He stated at this point, he will be happy to answer any  
questions.  
Mr. Daryl Hendricks stated thank you again. He asked if there were any  
questions.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated that she knows that they are running behind, but  
she had a quick question. She stated that since they are not the only  
municipality that has the Safe Streets For All designation, is there evidence  
that making these changes in the in these other municipalities is working.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated yeah, the trend is in the right direction. Obviously,  
this is a very strong first step for the city to refocus on safety and have the  
opportunity to apply for a lot of funding to implement these improvements.  
He stated that this is definitely a step in the right direction. They have seen  
other municipalities like Bethlehem, they got over $10 million for Broad  
Street improvements. Lancaster got $12 million for their improvements.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated that she guesses what she is getting at is a lot of  
times government throw money around and then nothing happens. You  
don't actually get a result. She guesses she would be interested if other  
municipalities who already done this and she did not get the chance to  
read Philly's yet from 2024 for their Annual Report. Is it working. Is it  
putting day lighting in the flashing lights is actually working or is it just  
spending a bunch of money and Press Conferences and nothing really  
changes.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated that these are proven safety counter measures.  
These are things that have been used to improve work in other locations.  
Lot's of studies back up their effectiveness. They are relying on time tested  
things that have worked in other places and trying to make a toolbox a tool  
that the Public Works department can use to make things better in the city.  
They are used in a lot of other places and proven to be very effective.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated ok, she guesses her only other thing would be  
for the day lighting since it says that it is going to be happening on  
Tilghman Street. She is looking at different versions of what day lighting  
can look like. She stated like planters and like those.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated flex posts.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated yes, flex posts. She stated that flex posts are  
cheaper than planters.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated true. He stated that he thinks that again, this  
quick build project is to try to get things in the ground quickly to make sure it  
is going to work. He stated not to spend tons of money on it, but like try to  
work out the bugs and how they would work here in Allentown. Likely, if you  
want to get things done quickly and relatively cheaply, probably you will use  
the flex post first. If you say it works well, then maybe you are talking about  
doing a curb extension and doing the planters and the more permanent  
improvements.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated that means the Parking Authority would have to  
adjust their signage. The interesting thing with day lighting is technically it  
is illegal to park within 20 - 30 feet of a stop sign already and at an  
intersection. These are areas that technically, people should not be  
parking there now. They are basically parking illegally. It is basically  
putting physical things in the way so it makes it difficult for people to park in  
those places. They are not supposed to be parking in the first place.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated that she would think that they would and have no  
evidence that it feels like there are some signs that the Parking Authority.  
She stated ok. She stated also with the bike lanes and she has seen in  
other municipalities like more so out west, they have really good bike lanes  
where they have like a median. They have like their own.  
Ms. Candida Affa entered the meeting via Teams at 6:30:44 PM  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated protected bike lane, yes.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated that they are just going to do a quicker one  
where they are just on the street.  
Mr. Chris Stanford stated that the ideal would be detected bike lanes. He  
stated that they are working with the city on a bike plan now. He stated  
separate grant and separate project. Those are some of the things that  
they would look into potentially on other roadways. The upgrading existing  
bike lanes or any new bike lane, they would make recommendations for  
protected facilities.  
Mayor Matt Tuerk asked could he add Councilperson Gerlach, one of the  
things that prohibits their ability to invest in smart infrastructure for bike  
lanes in particular is state law that prohibits municipalities from creating  
something called a parking protected bike lane where you will be able to  
shift parking over and put the bike lane between parked cars and the  
sidewalk as opposed to putting them and asked do you follow.  
Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated yeah. He stated that it is presently illegal in the  
state of Pennsylvania. You have to be parked within 12 inches of a curb.  
He stated that they are working to advocate with the state legislature to  
change that. He stated that he knows that Kat and Scott are on this too and  
building an organization around those kinds of legislation changes. It is  
part of what they need to do and part of a Safety Action Plan in the city of  
Allentown is to advocate for legislative changes. It allows them to make  
things safer in our city. Ms. Ce Ce Gerlach stated alright, thank you and  
said that is all she got. Thank you.  
Dr. Cynthia Mota stated that she knows that they are pressed for time, but  
rally quick what are you guys planning to do on the southside, again.  
Mayor Matt Tuerk stated that the Press Conference that they held today  
was on Jefferson Street which is the entrance to Lehigh Parkway on the  
southside.  
Dr. Cynthia Mota stated yes, a lot of people get into an accident there. She  
stated that she was one of them.  
Mayor Matt Tuerk stated correct. He stated that there is a $1.9 million  
Automated Light Enforcement grant from PennDot that they would use to  
do a road diet, to make things safer in that part of the city. He stated that  
you can  
7 -  
Yes:  
Cynthia Mota, Daryl Hendricks, Ed Zucal, Natalie Santos, Ce-Ce Gerlach, Candida  
Affa, and Santo Napoli  
Enactment No: 31031  
ADJOURNED: 6:38 PM