Lycoming News

Clinton County  issued the following announcement on Oct. 19.

Over the next five years, a multimodal study will be conducted in order to improve public transportation in Clinton County.

The consultant for the study, Keith Chase, spoke in front of the Clinton County commissioners yesterday, updating the community on its progress from the past few months with their proposed strategy.

The study will cover the multimodal modes of transportation, specifically with trails and bikes. Some projects involved in Chase's proposed strategy included the completion of the Bald Eagle Trail with its connections; improving the counties already existing trail network; and creating bike and walking paths to access the middle school and high schools. Shoulder improvements, adding bike lanes and establishing a multimodal hub in Lock Haven were also mentioned in the presentation.

Chase explained the workings of the developed strategy and why it was developed in the first place. He said there was a challenge involved, a concern about public transit service within the county. Adding that a pilot program did not continue and created a situation, or a major mark of what they are going to do about public transportation.

Commissioner Angela Harding has been involved with the project. Chase commended her for leadership in both responding to the challenge, involving others throughout the county, and "most importantly" working through the issue with PennDOT leadership to arrive at a bigger solution, he said.

"PennDOT did believe in Clinton County and believed in a need for a strategy. I have seen a trend ... it is very helpful for a sub-state level of government, a county or a municipality, to be able to communicate their priorities when seeking any external funding and now you are in a very a good position to do that. PennDOT for one, has been very actively involved in the development of this strategy and have already made several commitments on terms of follow-up," Chase said.

Two major stakeholder workshops were conducted in May and July. The one in May involved PennDOT and Clinton County specific stakeholders where Chase said they worked very productively to identify what the range of issues, challenges, and needs are. He added they are also trying to identify who they are significantly serving and how they perceive how well the service is working for them.

"Between May and July, all that information was used to get down to a handful of draft goals," Chase said, adding that in July, they held another workshop in-person in Clinton County to further work on how the goals can be advanced.

Harding said that they will release more detailed information of the mulitmodal strategy later this week.

In another agenda item, County Planner Katie De Silva updated the commissioners on the completion of the Clinton County Planning Commission review, adding an amendment to the zoning ordinance to cover utility scale solar installations. The solar installations will include both utility and accessory installations.

"Our ordinance had nothing about solar because it wasn't a thing in Pennsylvania until recently; because solar panels have improved to the point where they are really efficient. Even with cloud and wintry weather, they still can produce and are a viable option now," explained De Silva. At 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, the commissioners will hold a public hearing to consider adoption of this ordinance. At that hearing they will lay out a lot of what is in the ordinance.

De Silva also updated commissioners and the public on a grant given to improve local broadband services in the area. She said that after considerable research and discussion with SEDA-COG, the commissioners have selected Upward Broadband services, based out of Paradise, Pa. Having recently expanded their services out into Huntingdon and Mifflin counties, and the Southern Allegheny planning district, made them a viable option.

The total project is set to cost approximately $1,482,735. De Silva said that they are going to use $375,000 of their own funds. Along with those funds, they will take out a loan and combine that with the grant that came through SEDA-COG through the Appellation Regional Commission to use toward their total project.

"One of the reasons why they were chosen was because they said that they were going to serve 315 households and seven businesses in the Sugar Valley area, but have the capability to expand afterward out to serve another 10,500 customers. It is a combination of fiber and point-to-point wireless," she said. "The whole point of it is high speed and reliability."

De Silva also said that they will use competitive state wide allocation money for broadband increase in the Bucktail area for the medical center, communication center and schools.

Original source can be found here.