Getting around town will be costly

(10/4) The Emmitsburg Planning and Zoning Commission saw three options for diverting traffic from coming through downtown, but only one appears to have any potential for being funded at this point.

Chris Jakubiak with Jakubiak and Associates showed the planning commissioners the draft version of the transportation component of town master plan update. The plan shows a map of possible road improvements in and around town.

“Each of them are important improvements to accommodate development as it happens,” Jakubiak said.

Included in the map are three options to divert traffic around downtown Emmitsburg. One is the proposed bypass to the southwest of town that uses Mountain View Road. A second is a road that would go through potential developments north of town and allow a route to Route 15 that doesn’t go through Emmitsburg. Jakubiak pointed out that this is not a bypass but would probably be a collector road. The third is a northern bypass in Pennsylvania that uses Boyle Road.
Jakubiak pointed out that the plan doesn’t recommend any of the option. It instead asks for a jurisdictional study.

As far as funding any of the options go, Pennsylvania would have to agree to participate in the northern bypass project. Rocky Mackintosh, the developer for the Frailey property, has proposed to build the southern bypass.

Maryland would have to participate in the funding of the northern collector road, but Dennis Yoder with the State Highway Administration said the project isn’t in the town’s six-year capital improvement program for road.

“I don’t even believe it’s in our long-range plan,” Yoder said.

The planning and zoning commission will discuss the recommendations and vote on what they will recommend to the town commissioners.