CRANBERRY TWP — Supervisor Anthony Bertolino, who has lived in the township for more than 35 years, has seen the township experience substantial growth in that time.

“For the last 25 years — maybe longer — the number one issue is traffic,” he said at the fifth Cranberry Conversations on Tuesday, Nov. 10, addressing dozens of residents in the crowd. “We're aware of the problem. We know that it's there.”

Pete Lombardi, a partner at czb LLC, a Maine-based planning and community development consulting firm working with the township, provided data on traffic and transportation at the workshop.

Though growth has slowed down recently, the township continues to grow in contrast to most of the Pittsburgh region, said Lombardi.

Of the about 15,000 township residents who are employed, almost 80% travel outside the township for their jobs, he said. And of the 29,000 jobs in the township, almost 90% are commuters from outside the township.

“People are coming into Cranberry from everywhere, which is part of the traffic challenge,” said Lombardi. “Where people are coming from and where people are going to is pretty crazy. It all over the place.”

As a result, public transit is difficult to map, since there are few common destinations and housing density is low, he said.

While factors have worked against Cranberry historically when it comes to transit, Lombardi said things could look different in the future.

“Over the next 10 to 15 years, there are a number of different technological forces that could reinvent what transit looks like,” he said.

Existing technology has already helped alleviate traffic tensions in the township, Lombardi said.

A surge of remote work since 2019 will also be a factor to consider moving ahead, Lombardi said. Work is, however, not the only driver of traffic within the area. The township is a commercial and retail hub located right off an interstate.

“That's the blessing and the curse of being at the intersection with the interstate,” said Santoro.

Supervisor Karen Newpol pointed out that not all the traffic in the township are locals. A good chunk is long distance travelers passing through.

Data collected by the township suggests only half the cars that travel through the busy intersection of Route 19 and Route 228 are Cranberry residents, according to Santoro.

“When you're thinking about traffic, it's not necessarily coming from developments,” said Newpol. “It's coming from all over, because we are a hub.”

During the second part of the workshop, attendees were broken into groups for roundtable discussions facilitated by a township official or a firm representative.

Lombardi said attendees were provided with four hypothetical scenarios to tackle and share opinions on, two each for planning of transportation and for growth in the township.

For transportation, participants were first asked to consider ways to improve driving within the township, with a priority for road travel.

“The vast majority of people here, they get around by car,” said Lombardi. “So you're kind of doubling down and making sure that that works better.”

Attendees were then asked to consider the possibilities of expanding other means of transportation to reduce dependability on driving, like biking or walking.

While road travel is still a part of the scenario, “we want to get a sense of how open people are to thinking about investments in some of these alternatives,” Lombardi said.

The session also covered the choice going forward between prioritizing redevelopment of existing infrastructure and commercial areas or building new in open spaces or at the edges of existing development.

Redevelopment is more expensive but causes less change overall and would preserve open space, Lombardi noted.

Tuesday’s session was the fifth in a series of data gathering workshops held by officials to help the township update its comprehensive plan, according to Santoro.

The first two sessions in June and July focused on key issues identified by township officials: park projects in development and EMS’s ongoing financial challenges.

The third session in August launched a township initiative to collect direct resident feedback about community priorities and values. Data from the meeting was also used to map the agendas for the following sessions.

A fourth session in September focused on housing and land use with a similar format to Tuesday’s seminar.

A sixth session on Dec. 1 will focus on activity centers and quality of life issues.