Lancaster County was ranked top 10 for most traffic fatalities last year in PA; How officials are trying to fix that

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — The Lancaster County Metropolitan Planning Organization is looking to improve traffic safety.

According to a PennDOT report last year, Lancaster was one of ten Pa. counties with the most traffic-related deaths.

"We're gathering public input concerning our Traffic Safety Action Plan, which is going towards reducing all fatal and serious injury crashes, but mostly getting fatal crashes to zero," said Will Clark, the county's Director of land use and transportation. "That's the goal."

Clark tells abc27 News, in 2022 they received a two hundred-thousand-dollar grant from the Federal Highway Association and began evaluating different crashes throughout county in order to prep this Traffic Safety Action Plan.

"We hired a consultant, and a consulting team is helping us analyze the data," Clark added. "This is the first time that we're doing one countywide to this level of detail."

The data was presented at Tuesday night's open house for people living in Lancaster County.

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abc27 Evening Newsletter "I have been really encouraged by the information I've seen and just the amount of information and data that they have is just really fascinating and encouraging to see that they're really taking this seriously," said Lancaster resident, Seth Wilcox.

Another resident, Christian Hinojosa added, "It makes me feel good knowing that they're there to make decisions about what to put where to keep people safe."

Clark says the county receives about 72 million dollars a year from the state and federal government for safety and reconstruction projects.

"There is at least $6 million that we have to spend on safety projects, that the federal government requires us to spend on safety projects," he said. "But we could spend up to the $72 million."

Some of those projects already underway.

If you couldn't make this open house and have traffic concerns in Lancaster County, you can reach out to the county's planning department and simply ask for someone in transportation.