Published: May 03, 2008 11:24 pm      

Diverting Route 219 traffic could be the best option, some say

NORTHERN CAMBRIA — In the five years Connie Yingling has run Connie’s Cuts she does not recall a single person traveling through town on Route 219 stopping for a trim.

Fact is, Yingling said, diverting much of the north-south thru traffic could make Northern Cambria Borough a nicer place to live and do business.

“I don’t think it would hurt the businesses,” Yingling said as she clipped a customer’s hair last week. “The thing that runs through here all day is coal trucks and they don’t benefit me.”

Improving Sunset Road in Carrolltown to take north-south traffic to Route 36 near Patton would probably have little impact on the economy of Northern Cambria and points north to the county line, said borough resident Roy Wheeler.

“These are all stores used by local people,” Wheeler said. “The gas station, maybe Sheetz would be hurt a little.”

Yingling and Wheeler are not alone in their views that outside of a four-lane limited access 219, moving traffic to Route 36 may be the best option.

“It certainly would take traffic out of town, but I don’t think it would do anything as far as local traffic is concerned,” said Jerry Brant, president of the Northern Cambria Community Development Corp. “It may have some small negative impact, but if you’re a trucker going from Virginia to Canada, I don’t think you stop in Northern Cambria for anything.”

The impact could cut both ways, said state Rep. Gary Haluska, D. - Patton who lead the fight for some type of improvement after the state pulled the plug on design of a four-lane 219 to the county line.

“You wouldn’t have that traffic mainlining through Northern Cambria Borough, but some of that traffic does bring a little prosperity,” Haluska said.

One concern for Brant, who lives along Sunset Road is that the projected $17 million cost of upgrading the secondary road may not be sufficient to handle the traffic the alternate route could bring.

“I don’t know if $17 million would be enough. It would almost make sense to have a new alignment,” Brant said.

Meanwhile, the true economic development will come when those controlling the purse strings decide this part of the state is worth the $2 billion it will cost to run a four-lane 219 from Ebensburg to DuBois and Route 80, Haluska said.

“It’s a relative thing,” Haluska said of the comparative high cost of building military aircraft. “I will running this dog (for a new 219) until I die.”