There are several things that unite us as Lehigh Valleyites — Musikfest, which begins this week, the IronPigs, the Phantoms, the Bach Choir — but nothing makes us feel so united, I would wager, as our hatred for Route 22. Route 22 sucks. In fact, Route 22 sucks so bad, the name of the road should be changed officially to Route 22 Sucks. Let’s say you’re providing directions: “Okay, Bill, get off the Northeast Extension, take Route 22 Sucks Eastbound, and get off on Airport Road South.” Of course, Airport Road South sucks, too, just not as bad as Route 22.
Now, to be fair, the pre-22 days were a nightmare. I checked this. Traveling west from New Jersey into Allentown, you had to go through downtown Easton on Northampton Street, then through Wilson, then William Penn Highway through Palmer and Bethlehem Townships, then through Bethlehem along Union Boulevard. Along the way, you went through 31 traffic lights and a series of twisting, winding roads. So, 22 looked pretty good.
But things got bad early. Way back in 1963, just nine years after the road opened, state police had already informed local officials the throughway could not handle traffic at rush hour. By 1977, PennDOT figures showed that 22 was already the fourth heaviest travel highway in Pennsylvania, with 51,000 vehicles daily. Now there’s four times as many, many of them trucks…