Waynesboro seeks crosswalk on busy Pa. 16 near mall

March 11, 2008|By JENNIFER FITCH

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - The Borough of Waynesboro has started the process that could bring a new crosswalk to Pa. 16 connecting the Waynesboro Mall parking lot with the houses on and around Sunnyside Avenue.

"It would come right straight across Main Street and be just west to the entrance of the Kmart," Borough Engineer Kevin Grubbs said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation must review the borough's application and then approve the idea for it to happen, he said.

Doug McCullough, of Summit Avenue in nearby Eastland Hills, said he presented the Waynesboro Borough Council with the crosswalk request twice in the past 18 months. His wife, Phyllis, crossed the street on Monday afternoon to meet him in front of Savage Family Pharmacy at the strip mall.

"It's like taking your life in your hands trying to cross here," said Phyllis McCullough, who walks with a cane.

The couple watched middle and high school students walk past the mall after dismissal.

"They run across, of course, but I can't," said Phyllis McCullough, who walks for recreation twice a day.

Grubbs said that approximately 23,000 vehicles travel Pa. 16 daily in front of the mall.

The McCulloughs, like many of their neighbors, would prefer that a traffic light be installed at the intersection of Northeast Avenue and East Main Street. However, until then, the couple's arguments are that a crosswalk would encourage people to walk to the businesses and provide a designated place for the children to cross.

"You have several hundred people living across the street from this mall, and among those several hundred people, you have three or four dozen schoolkids," Doug McCullough said.

He said that four-tenths of a mile on Pa. 16 separate the crosswalk at Waynesboro Hospital from the one at the Waynesboro Area YMCA, and he and his wife noted that the sidewalks end at the edge of the mall property.

"The only logical place is to put one here at the middle of the mall," Doug McCullough said. "Waynesboro is about as unsafe to pedestrians as any town in southcentral Pennsylvania."

The McCulloughes said they hope that the borough council endeavors to make Waynesboro safer for pedestrians all over town.

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