PennDOT has moved to the next phase for the planned State College Area Connector and will hold its first public meeting on the project since 2022 in August.
The department and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published on Wednesday a Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. The notice initiates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) phase of project development, which includes preliminary engineering and environmental studies.
An open house “scoping” meeting will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. on Aug. 15 at Mount Nittany Middle School, PennDOT wrote in a news release in Thursday. Attendees will have an opportunity to get an up-close look at the “refined alternatives,” or the proposed routes under consideration, as well as review environmental and traffic information, discuss the alternatives with the project team and provide input and comment.
Property owners within the project area will receive a written invitation and early access between noon and 3 p.m. to view the meeting materials.
The connector project aims to construct an approximately 8-mile, four-lane limited access road connecting U.S. 322 at Potters Mills and the Mount Nittany Expressway near Boalsburg, addressing safety and congestion concerns and improving traffic flow into the State College area and Interstates 80 and 99.
PennDOT completed the first phase of project development in August 2023 with publication of the final Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) report for the SCAC study, which identified three “build alternatives” to move forward. Conducted with the FHWA, the study evaluated existing and projected transportation needs within a 70-square-mile area in the U.S. Route 322, state Route 45 and state route 144 corridor.
Each of the three identified options — US 322-1OEX, US 322-1S and US 322-5 — would connect U.S. 322 at the Mt. Nittany Expressway in Boalsburg and U.S. 322 at Potters Mills Gap, where a four-lane section of highway was completed in 2021. The link would essentially complete a four-lane highway from Harrisburg to State College and beyond.
All three would have service roads connecting to the local road network. Each is projected to divert nearly 53% of the total traffic and 73% of truck traffic from the local road network. Estimated costs range from $432 million and $517 million.
In January, PennDOT announced it was removing a connection to Route 45 included in two of the three options. The connection raised worries about safety issues, pollution, damage to residential areas and Route 45 being ill-equipped to handle increased traffic.
Instead, PennDOT is allocating up to $3 million to separately study and address safety concerns on Route 45 in Harris and Potter identified during the PEL study.
WHAT’S NEXT
Following the open house meeting in August, the project team will address comments and develop additional project refinements, according to PennDOT’s spring SCAC newsletter.
Refined alignments and a draft recommended preferred alignment will be presented at a second public meeting, tentatively expected to take place in early 2025. A public hearing will then be held after the release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for public and agency review.
The final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision are anticipated in June 2026.
Pending approval by the FHWA, the project will then move into the final engineering design phase. That will be followed by right-of-way acquisition and, finally, construction, which is not expected to begin until 2030 and will take about five years to complete.
