Route 202 motorists about to get break as project nears end

The project dates to the late 1990s, but for tens of thousands of motorists who have contended with the shifting lanes, bulky vehicles, construction crews, and sometimes bewildering lane shifts on Route 202, it might have seemed eternal.

"People feel like this has been going on forever," said John Ewald, manager of corporate and community relations for the Transportation Management Association of Chester County. "There is that sense of endless construction."

But the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation announced Thursday that the widening of Route 202, one of the region's busiest and fastest-growing corridors, is coming to an end. PennDot said all six lanes of the expressway on the widened 2.5-mile section in East Whiteland Township would be open by the end of next week.

"This will be a major travel improvement for Route 202 and for this area of Chester County for many, many years," said PennDot spokesman Gene Blaum. He said the widening marks the end of major construction on the expressway, which also runs through parts of Montgomery County. "There are no more plans to widen Route 202 going south of Route 30 at this time," he said.

For finishing touches on the $63.4 million project, crews will complete line striping and make other preparations from Sunday through Thursday between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be Aug. 12 in the park-and-ride facility by the Route 30 and Route 202 interchange.

Driven by development along 202, Chester County has been the fastest-growing county in the region, with an 18 percent increase in population from 2000 to 2014. Currently, the stretch between Routes 30 and 401 handles between 70,000 and 75,000 vehicles per day.

Route 202 was never built to handle such volume, and local and state organizations had discussed ways to expand the highway since the mid-1980s.

Started in April 2013, this was the widening project's final iteration. In addition to adding a lane, crews installed signs, cameras, and travel-time detectors designed to help both drivers and a traffic center monitor the flow of vehicles.

The project was to be completed by May 2016, but ran into difficulties as the ground needed to be reinforced so it could support the improvements, Blaum said.

Even after the new lane is opened, crews will continue work and close lanes periodically at night for at least the next several weeks, including finishing sound walls and clearing any concrete left near the roadway.

PennDot is generally pleased with its time frame. "For a job of this magnitude, it's pretty darn close to being on schedule," Blaum said.

In the previous phase, which began in April 2011 and ended in September 2014, additional lanes were added to four miles of highway in East Whiteland and Tredyffrin Townships at a cost of $105.4 million. Prior to that, from the late 1990s to 2003, the road was widened between I-76 and Tredyffrin.