CHESTER, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Safety improvements are on the way for a Delaware County road that’s seen hundreds of crashes and more than a dozen fatalities over the past few years. Those improvements are made possible through millions of federal dollars.
Route 291 in Chester has a storied history of being a nuisance, with nearly 300 accidents and at least 13 fatalities since 2018, according to Delaware County Councilwoman Elaine Paul Schaefer.
“We heard from residents, all up and down the corridor, really some heartbreaking stories about how dangerous it is to live there, to live near it, to drive on it.”
Schaefer says that’s why officials have been working to improve it. A recent study shed a lot of light on what’s wrong with the road.
“A major industrial highway was plopped down in the middle of a neighborhood creating a real division and disconnecting the people from the waterfront, from the businesses down there,” she said. “This is a real opportunity to make this a neighborhood again.”
Now, thanks to a $2.5 million federal grant, the county is able to fund engineering and design in order to, Schaefer said, “improve the entire corridor, make it safer, make it more welcoming, have the ability to connect the city of Chester to the waterfront and also incorporate the East Coast Greenway.”
U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, along with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, delivered the grant last week. The money comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Neighborhood Access and Equity Program, created by the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Ensuring that our streets are safe and walkable is critical to making our communities more livable – this is a strong project that will do just that,” said Fetterman.
Schaefer says they’ll be able to make some immediate safety improvements to 291, like adding more traffic lights, but a complete overhaul of the road will take years.