Horse and buggy accidents among potential issues safety plan to address

Planners continue to seek public input in project development

LEWISTOWN -- The Mifflin County Planning and Development Department held an open house Thursday to discuss roadway safety concerns throughout the county as part of its initiative to develop a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan through the Federal Highway Administration's Safe Streets For All program. Chief among the concerns were Amish horse-and-buggy safety and speeding-related accidents.

Planning Director James Lettiere stated during the public input portion of the open house that Route 655 needs "a horse and buggy lane off that 655 because he’s right, it is extremely dangerous when people try to pass." Lettiere referred to a resident's concern about unsafe conditions for drivers and horse and buggies on Route 655 when he said that this addition is "pie in the sky" but necessary.

"People cut it so short that you almost have a head-on collision," Lettiere added.

Another resident, Kay Semler, told the project team that an area called the twin bridges has many major truck accidents. Semler said the area begins in Brown Township and ends in Derry Township.

Another resident added that the speed limit in that area jumps from 55 mph to 65 mph and that most people likely speed up before they reach the bridge, suggesting the issue may be speed-related.

Residents and project team members identified many other issues including speeding on Route 322, e-bikes, distracting electronic billboards near the Burnham Sheetz on Logan Boulevard, limited visibility at the entrance to the Yeagertown Wawa, and the condition of some vehicles on the road.

About 70 pins have been submitted to the interactive online map that residents and project team members utilized to point out specific roadway concerns during the open house. Anyone can continue to submit concerns on this map at wikimapping.com/mbakerintl/mifflin-county-safety-action-plan until Oct. 19.

Earlier during the open house, Phillip Bobitz, the project's technical manager, shared the project mission and statistics gathered to help create the safety action plan.

Bobitz is part of Michael Baker International, an organization consulting on the project to provide solutions to roadway concerns. The planning department works with this organization and subconsultant teams from Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. and Kittelson & Associates Inc. to complete the action plan, tentatively scheduled for July or August 2027.

Bobitz shared that the project aims to reduce serious injuries and fatalities on Mifflin County roadways.

Bobitz shared that the team reviewed five years of crash data, from 2021 through 2025. During that period, Mifflin County recorded:

•1,874 crashes

•23 fatalities

•140 serious injuries

He stated that the crashes were spread throughout the county, including both Lewistown and rural areas. About two-thirds of fatal and serious-injury crashes occurred on PennDOT-maintained roads, while roughly 20% occurred on local roads and another 15% occurred at intersections involving state and local roads.

Bobitz said that the preliminary analysis identified several major trends:

•Roadway-departure crashes account for nearly half of all crashes and roughly half of fatal and serious-injury crashes.

•Non-motorized and vulnerable road users are disproportionately represented in serious crashes.

•Motorcyclists accounted for about 2% of road users involved in all crashes but about 9% of those involved in fatal and serious-injury crashes.

•36% of crashes occurred in darker lighting conditions.

•32% of crashes occurred on curved roadways.

•About 20% of crashes were attributed to speeding.

•19% of crashes involved the driver’s physical condition, including factors such as impairment or fatigue.

Overrepresentation in this context means that the overrepresented categories have been involved in more crashes in the county than in average crash statistics.

The project team emphasized that public input is an important part of the process because crash statistics do not capture every safety concern people experience while regularly traveling county roads.

The process to create a safety plan will consider crash history, public concerns, emergency response times, high-injury road networks and the locations of schools, parks, libraries and other community destinations, among other factors.

Next, after continuing to gather public input, the team will summarize community concerns and existing conditions and draft a high-injury network and findings in November and December.