Lewisburg adds quick pedestrian safety fixes at busy Market Street crossings

Lewisburg is adding quick pedestrian safety fixes at two of its busiest Market Street crossings, a short-term move meant to make the street easier to cross now for walkers, parents, seniors and students who have long dealt with traffic cutting through the downtown core.

The work will focus on Market and Water streets and Market and South Front Street. Borough officials said the upgrades will stay modest on purpose: more signage, additional paint and, in some spots, reflective strips on existing poles so drivers notice the crosswalks sooner. Lewisburg already installed an LED-lit crosswalk sign last year, but Councilwoman Samantha Pearson said PennDOT’s feedback pointed to the need for more engineering if the borough wanted to push much further without a deeper study.

Instead of waiting for a larger capital project, Lewisburg chose to handle this phase internally and lean on the PennDOT Local Technical Assistance Program for free guidance and recommendations. PennDOT says LTAP is free to municipalities and has served Pennsylvania’s 2,600 municipal governments since 1983, offering technical help, training and safety resources for local road projects.

Pearson said the borough has been working on pedestrian safety for more than a decade, but the issue sharpened over the last year as residents pushed for faster action. The immediate changes are being treated as a stopgap, not a full fix, while Lewisburg uses a $200,000 grant to assess road safety for drivers, walkers and bikers. That money is expected to shape broader improvements beyond the two crossings now getting attention.

The larger planning effort is Lewisburg’s Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, funded by a Safe Streets and Roads for All planning grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The borough held a second public open house on May 21, 2025, and scheduled a third public meeting for March 26, 2026, as it neared completion of that plan.

The stakes are especially visible in Lewisburg, where many households are car-light or car-free and where the affected crossings sit near traffic-heavy destinations such as Soldiers Memorial Park and the riverfront. For a borough built around a walkable downtown, the question is not cosmetic. It is whether crossing Market Street feels intuitive and safe enough for everyday use.

The latest step also fits a longer local effort. Lewisburg’s Market Street Corridor Study, published on November 21, 2019, covered a nine-block stretch from Market Street and US Route 15 to the Market Street Bridge over the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It examined pedestrian, car and truck counts, speed studies, crash analyses, traffic signal phasing, sound level and vibration analyses, pavement studies, and merchant and safety survey inquiries. The study identified five core concerns: public health and safety, historic district integrity, downtown economic vitality, public and private infrastructure, and overall quality of life.

Pearson’s work on the borough’s Planning and Public Works Committee also connects to Walk It! Bike It! Lewisburg, which has been active since 2015. The new crosswalk fixes are meant to buy time, but they also show Lewisburg trying to move faster on a hazard residents meet every day.