The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has announced plans to reconstruct a busy section of Route 443.

The project would alleviate traffic and hopefully crashes along what is one of the busiest roads in Carbon County, according to officials.Plans for the project were unveiled Wednesday night at a public meeting in Lehighton. Construction is set to begin in 2018 and would wrap up in 2021.PennDOT plans to widen the section of 443 known locally as Blakeslee Boulevard Drive East from the Thomas J. McCall Memorial Bridge west, ending at Ashtown Road, just west of the Carbon Plaza.That will allow them to add a center left-turn lane along much of the stretch, as well as dedicated left-turn lanes at each intersection. Engineers with Taylor Wiseman and Taylor, who presented the project, said they noticed that left turns were causing many of the crashes along the highway.“There were 99 collisions over a five-year period, 80 of which had injuries,” Wayne Howitz said. “A big feature of the project is the center turn lane to alleviate that, as well as left turn lanes at all the intersections.”Another aspect that should reduce congestion is the addition of new traffic signals all along the corridor. Bill Hitchens of Taylor Wiseman and Taylor said that the new signals will be able to detect vehicles waiting in traffic and also be coordinated to further reduce congestion and time spent in traffic.“A stress that you’ve already adopted in your daily life is going to disappear. The signals are going to be more responsive to traffic,” Hitchens said.Two bridges are included in the project. The bridge carrying Route 902 over the Mahoning Creek would be replaced and re-aligned.Howitz said that it is a goal to keep two lanes of traffic open throughout the project. Traffic will be shifted to one half of the road while construction takes place, then moved onto the new section while the other half of the road is constructed.“We’re going to maintain two lanes as best as we can throughout the project, maintain all driveway access through construction,” he said.That was a concern for business owners attending the project. Chris Nelson of Beacon 443 Restaurant said that the construction on the McCall Bridge two years ago made traffic on the section of road so bad that customers decided not to make the trip.“We want traffic, of course,” Nelson said. “We just don’t want it to sit for a half an hour.”Janice Harleman, who owned the Boulevard Drive-in for 40 years, wanted to see how the project would affect the parking in front of the business. Even though it has a new owner, she still owns the property.Other attendees included Lehighton Mayor Tom Mase, who said he would like to see the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation construct a traffic light at the intersection of Ninth Street (Route 902) and Bridge Street.Businessman Joseph Bennett, part of a group building a new Autozone store along the highway, expressed his concern for the restaurants, but said he ultimately supported the project because it will make traffic flow more smoothly.“I think the plus is it is going to make all of our properties more valuable because of the access, and the fact that right now we’re backed up, it’s blocking access on my property on a Friday night,” Bennett said.