[hammersklavier]

Wats, as a country highway, Sumneytown Pike (like Harleysville Pike) is, on average--especially north of Kulpsville--about two lanes wider than what it need be. An efficient utilization would be to use what is currently just the emergency shoulder as a BRT lane with the buses merging back into traffic around breakdowns, should they occur.

In addition, this BRT, unlike traditional busing, would only have limited-stop service: starting from Lansdale T.C., it would head up Main/Welsh to Ralph's Corner (stop 1), turn left on Forty Foot to Kulpsville (stop 2), turn right onto Sumneytown, head past Mainland (stop 4) to Henniong's (stop 5), on to central Harleysville (stop 6) and the shopping center on the north side (stop 7) (where it may connect with a BRT route heading out of Souderton towards Skippack), and then on up into more rural areas, with a stop at Sumneytown proper, where the pike crosses the Unami Creek (stop 8), and then to Green Lane (stop 9). From there, it may either terminate or head up Gravel Pike--Rt. 23--to Red Hill (stop 10) and thence Pennsburg (stop 11), at which point it terminates. The reason why I say BRT would be best along this route is that north of Kulpsville the environment becomes noticeably rural but that around the Green Lane area there is a small concentration of population. I believe that the wide margins of country highways are suitable for intermediate-to-long distance BRT routes.

Rail restoration to Quakertown would also offer BRT termini at Souderton/Telford, Sellersville/Perkasie, and Quakertown as well. BRTs from this line could access places like Trumbauersville, Nockamixon S.P., Dublin, Point Pleasant, Pennsburg, as well as other places. The point is to use BRT to provide transit access to citizens living in smaller towns far enough away from the rail mains that regular rail transit is not an option. Some of these routes can even have feeder buses running into them--for instance, a bus circulator from Mainland up Wambold (i.e., past Hagey Coach and Asher's) to Allentown through Elroy (past the beef place) on to Franconia, left onto Harleysville, past the NE Ext., and south by Keller's into Harleysville, where it terminates at the Harleysville/Sumneytown intersection.