Uniontown City Council seeks grants for traffic light repairs, upgrades
Uniontown is seeking a grant of more than $1 million for traffic improvements in the city.
City Council approved a request Thursday for a $1,028,038 Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Multimodal Grant tied to the Sheepskin Trail.
Funds from the grant will go toward reconfiguring four traffic lights along the Sheepskin Trail corridor to better accommodate foot and non-motorized traffic along the trail, said Mayor Bill Gerke.
“We’re not including foot/bike traffic now, so after we reconfigure those, it’ll make it easier and safer for foot/bike traffic, and of course automotive traffic as well,” he said.
It will also provide the opportunity for repairing traffic lights, according to Gerke.
One of the lights that has been out for some time is in front of the city fire station on the corner of East Penn Street and North Beeson Avenue, Gerke said. “It’s a very costly fix.”
According to a PennDOT website created for Sheepskin Trail work, signal improvements are necessary for a planned, separated multi-use trail that will run parallel to the Beeson Avenue corridor. That separate trail section will be built by other groups once the signal upgrades are complete.
The city had previously sought to make the traffic light improvements through a federal grant, Gerke said.
“This is about the same structure as the previous grant we had applied for,” he said. This seems to work a little better for us.”
PennDOT should let the city know if it received the grant sometime after the start of 2027, Gerke said.
“That grant would repair the light and three others that are out along Beeson,” he said. “Whenever it’s awarded, which should be sometime in 2027, that is when we could move forward with the light repairs.”