The study for this project started back in 2011, and the initial project design was to eliminate the raised concrete traffic islands, to eliminate the intermediate crossovers because those were where the high rates of crashes occur or have a tendency to occur and still leave the access/service roads open at the northern and southern limits.
We presented this to the public and got extensive push back on that option. We had a public plans display and then Senator Ferry led a town hall back in 2014 regarding this. So, at that point PennDOT made the decision to advance the southern two projects RC1 and RC2 and reconsider the RC3 corridor and look at alternatives. The primary alternative being looking at interchanges and closing the frontage road because of the concerns from the initial public involvement.