Supervisor urges funding for Route 37 bypass, cites $7 million in current budget allocation
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Summary
Supervisor Dunn urged the Board to increase funding for a long‑planned Route 37 bypass, noting the county currently has about $7 million designated for transportation and that a segmented, phased parkway could substantially reduce traffic on multiple county roads.
Supervisor Dunn used his board comments to urge colleagues to prioritize funding for a long‑discussed Route 37 bypass to relieve congestion on Route 522, Route 7, Valley Mills, Senseny Road and other corridors. Dunn said the bypass concept originally envisioned an interstate has evolved toward a parkway and argued for building the project in connected segments of independent utility.
Dunn told colleagues there is currently about $7,000,000 in the county budget designated for transportation work and that building the bypass will require substantial additional funding over time. He cited example traffic projections shown in presentation slides: Senseny Road traffic could fall from roughly 13,900 to 9,000 daily trips and Route 7 projections dropping from 46,000 to 28,000 trips per day if the bypass is built. He framed the project as a long‑range, multi‑phase effort with estimated headline costs in the neighborhood of $300,000,000 (versus earlier, much larger interstate cost estimates on the order of $1,000,000,000) and urged the board to consider funding legs of the project with independent utility so each segment connects to existing roads.
No formal action or vote was taken on the bypass during the meeting; the remarks were part of Supervisor comments and were presented as background for the ongoing budget process.
