LEWISTOWN — During the August Mifflin County Planning Commission meeting, James Lettiere told his fellow committee members he was preparing a grant application to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Transportation Alternatives Set Aside Program to install six-foot wide bike lanes and five-foot wide sidewalks along western and eastern portions of Electric Avenue, from Ort Valley Road to the entrance of Kish Park.

Lettiere stated during Thursday’s monthly meeting that he heard back from PennDOT as well as SEDA-COG, which is looking to have a meeting with him to discuss a Safe Routes to School Grant.

This grant provides funding to communities to make it safer and more appealing for students to walk and bike to school.

The plan prioritizes the installation of continuous five-foot sidewalks throughout the corridor, creating a consistent pedestrian network that connects neighborhoods, schools, businesses, and the regional hospital. Where physical constraints make sidewalks challenging, innovative alternatives are recommended to ensure that pedestrian mobility and safety remain uncompromised.

This funding, managed at the state level through the Transportation Alternatives Set Aside Program, supports both infrastructure projects such as sidewalks and bike lanes as well as non-infrastructure initiatives including education and safety campaigns.

Lettiere also wanted to note some minor changes to nine applications for subdivision and land development projects that were all reviewed at a Sept. 18 review committee meeting. “Eight of which are under municipal and one under county,” Lettiere said.

Municipal ordinances include one for Emerson and Sandra Peachey in Brown Township, one for Trinity Plastics, Clayton Homes and Courtney Musser in Granville Township, one in Wayne Township for Rick Grissinger, one for Mark Laub as well as The Dunk Dynasty Income in Derry township and one for K&C Realty Development in Armagh Township.

Lettiere noted the Grissinger plan in particular as one he wanted to discuss more with committee members.

This plan proposes a lot line change to reconfigure three existing parcels of land under the same ownership to two lots instead.

Lettiere noted that some of the adjustment to this plan were minor, including a “lot combination” shall be provided on the plan clearly indicating the conveyance of land from the grantor to the grantee in accordance with the Mifflin County Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance as well as the parcel was originally not actively enrolled in the Clean and Green program, the parcel also indicated that the right away width of the front drive was substandard as well as the cart way width of the front drive.

However, since the review on Sept. 18 they did make these revisions addressing all of the conditional comments on the review letter provided at these meetings.

Based on this information, Lettiere suggested they conditionally approve of this plan and accept the comments on the other eight plans.