Montgomery Avenue is where we live, work and go to school. Too much of it is built like a fast route between the city and King of Prussia. From 2020 to 2024, there were 532 crashes between Spring Mill Road and City Avenue where someone got hurt or a car had to be towed. Lower Merion and Narberth just proposed a set of fixes. We’re neighbors who want to see them built, and pushed further.
On Oct. 13, Lower Merion and Narberth released 75 preliminary recommendations for the seven miles of Montgomery Avenue from Spring Mill Road to City Avenue. The full details, intersection by intersection, are in the study team’s own materials.
These are preliminary. Final recommendations are expected in late 2026 or early 2027.
The study has the numbers. Here’s what we take from them, and where we think the draft falls short.
Counting fender-benders, there were at least 1,452 crashes on this stretch from 2020 to 2024, roughly one every 30 hours. In 532 of them, someone was hurt or a car had to be towed. Thirty-four hit a person walking or biking, and every one of those caused an injury.
Lower Merion’s own 2025 Safety Action Plan found that 61% of the township’s serious injuries from 2019 to 2023 happened on just five roads. Montgomery Avenue is one of them.
That’s the pattern in the study’s own crash data, and it’s the problem the draft’s biggest ideas go after. A center turn lane gives left-turning drivers room to wait and look. Left-turn arrows give them a protected moment to turn, so fewer rush through a gap. Early walk signals put pedestrians in the crosswalk, where drivers can see them, before anyone starts turning. That’s why we care most about keeping these three.
From Bala Avenue to City Avenue, where Montgomery becomes Conshohocken State Road, the crash rate is 72% above the state average for similar roads, the highest on the corridor. Three of its seven intersections had 15 or more reportable crashes, and someone walking or biking was killed at City Avenue. Yet the draft proposes no lane changes there, only crosswalks, lighting, curb ramps and signal upgrades. We’d like the study team to explain why, or take another look.
The study compared five sections of the road to the Pennsylvania average for similar roads. All five came in higher, and the two eastern sections are far worse than the rest.
From the study’s February 2026 crash data presentation and recommendations map. The 1,452 total adds 532 reportable crashes and 920 minor ones; the minor count leaves out the stretch from Bala Avenue to City Avenue, so the real total is higher.
Most of the 75 recommendations are inexpensive and won’t stir much debate. Converting four lanes to three will. It’s the biggest change in the plan, and it’s the one we most want to protect.
Anyone who drives Montgomery Avenue knows the move. The car ahead stops to turn left, and you either hit the brakes or swing into the other lane and hope nobody’s there. The study flags this weaving and sudden braking as a key problem, and more than half of the corridor’s reportable crashes are angle crashes, the kind turning traffic tends to cause.
The fix is mostly paint: one through lane each way, with a turn lane in the middle. Turning cars get out of the way, through traffic stops weaving, and people on foot have fewer lanes to cross. Federal studies found 19% to 47% fewer crashes after conversions like this. The study’s 29% is the Federal Highway Administration’s combined estimate. For suburban roads like this one, FHWA suggests planning on 19%, which would still be a big drop.
This has been done nearby. In 2022–23, PennDOT converted nearly a mile of Wynnewood Road in Lower Merion the same way, with a design that included bike lanes, paid for with federal money. It isn’t a new idea for Montgomery Avenue either. At a 2018 Penn Valley Civic Association meeting about the stretch near Narberth, residents brought up a three-lane plan from 2005, and a civic leader suggested trying a pilot.
Full conversions are proposed in parts of Rosemont and Narberth; one-direction conversions in parts of Bryn Mawr, Merion and Bala Cynwyd. Sources: FHWA Road Diet Informational Guide (2014, archived). FHWA listed road diets as a “proven safety countermeasure” from 2012 until July 2026, when it removed them without publicly explaining why (the list before the change; NPR).
Illustration, not to scale.
Montgomery Avenue runs past our homes, our kids’ schools, and the shops and train stations we walk to. Right now it mostly works as a way to drive between the city and King of Prussia, and the crash numbers show it. The draft is a real start. We’d like Lower Merion and Narberth to go further.
The draft converts four lanes to three in parts of Rosemont and Narberth, and only one direction in parts of Bryn Mawr, Merion and Bala Cynwyd. We’d like full conversions wherever the road has four lanes and traffic allows, starting with the stretches that crash the most. That includes Bala Avenue to City Avenue, which gets no lane changes at all. Federal studies found 19% to 47% fewer crashes after conversions like these, and PennDOT has already done one nearby, on Wynnewood Road. If the study team thinks a section can’t handle it, it should publish the traffic modeling that shows why.
A lane conversion frees up space. Use it for bike lanes separated from traffic by a curb or barrier, so people can ride between Narberth, Ardmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr, and to the schools and train stations along the way. The draft has none, and as the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia points out, a road diet only gets bike lanes when people ask for them. Federal research found that adding bike lanes cut total crashes by up to 49% on four-lane urban collector streets, and separating them from traffic cut bike crashes by up to 53%. Wynnewood Road’s redesign included bike lanes, and Narberth has already tested protected lanes with Wheels on Windsor and Wheels on Haverford.
A person hit at 23 mph will probably survive. At 42 mph, it’s about a coin flip, according to the AAA Foundation. Speed-feedback signs and painted limits won’t close that gap. A federal study of 100 places where speed limits changed found that actual speeds moved by less than 1.5 mph. People drive as fast as the road feels, so the road has to change: narrower lanes, curb extensions, raised crosswalks near schools, and median islands where people cross. When Hamburg, New York narrowed lanes on its main street to 10 feet, injury crashes fell 60% and serious injuries fell 90%. Johns Hopkins researchers found the same pattern in cities including Philadelphia, and FHWA found that pedestrian refuge islands cut pedestrian crashes by 56%.
An early walk signal only helps if drivers don’t roll through it turning right. When states first allowed right on red, pedestrian crashes involving turning cars went up 57%. Philadelphia’s Vision Zero plan calls for no-turn-on-red zones, and Atlanta banned it in its busiest neighborhoods. We’d like the same near Lower Merion High School and the Baldwin School, and in downtown Narberth, Ardmore and Bryn Mawr.
Where a full rebuild will take years, start with temporary curbs, planters or concrete islands, and measure what happens. West Hartford, Connecticut ran its road diet as a seven-month trial first, and there were 16 crashes during the trial, versus 18 to 51 in the same months of the four years before (Strong Towns). Then make it permanent in concrete. One complication: federal safety grants now look at lane reductions “less favorably,” so the first phase may need local and state money. We think it’s worth it.
The township has a goal of cutting traffic deaths and serious injuries in half by 2030, and its safety plan says it will publish a Vision Zero report each year. We’d like Montgomery Avenue to have a page in it: what got built, what’s still waiting, and how the crash numbers are trending. Residents who backed the changes deserve to see whether they’re working.
It’s a fair question. The study team should answer it with traffic modeling, and we’ve asked them to. A few things to know in the meantime.
On a four-lane road with no turn lanes, the inside lane already works like a turn lane at every intersection and driveway. FHWA’s road diet guide says that in some cases these roads already operate “as a de facto three-lane roadway,” so “the effective capacity reduction is much less than the theoretical reduction.” Its myth-busting flyer adds that moving left-turning cars out of the travel lanes “actually improves operations.”
A 2023 study of busy Los Angeles streets found crashes and injuries fell 31% or more after conversion, while traffic speeds dropped only about 7%. It found little sign the benefits fade on roads carrying more than 20,000 cars a day.
Here, the study found that 29 of 31 intersections have little to moderate delay at the morning rush today (28 of 31 in the evening). It hasn’t published modeling for after the change yet. Some trips may take a bit longer at rush hour. We think that’s worth it for fewer injuries.
Pennsylvania is the only state where local police can’t use radar, as Lower Merion’s police superintendent noted in February. A bill to change that (SB 509) passed the Senate Transportation Committee 14–0 on Oct. 6, 2026, but the full Senate hasn’t voted. Even with radar, officers can’t be everywhere.
Enforcement still helps, and police expect a red-light camera at Montgomery and Airdale by the end of January, weather permitting. But when most drivers on a road are speeding, the road’s design is part of the problem. Strong Towns, founded by civil engineer Chuck Marohn, puts it simply: “It’s not an enforcement problem. It’s a design problem.” Wes Marshall, author of Killed by a Traffic Engineer, says we’re “enticing people to drive faster and then we blame them when they do and when they crash.”
A center turn lane gives fire trucks and ambulances a clear path down the middle. On today’s four-lane layout, drivers in the inside lane have nowhere obvious to pull over.
After Woodbury, New Jersey converted its main street, the retired police chief said it “did not affect emergency vehicle response times. Responders feel it is now easier and safer to reach their destination” (FHWA). A 2024 study of EMS response data in Cedar Rapids, Iowa found response times “did not meaningfully differ” after its conversions. And fewer crashes means fewer calls.
Studies so far say no. A Portland State study of 14 corridors in six cities found bike and pedestrian improvements had “either positive or non-significant impacts” on sales and jobs. FHWA notes that road diets can turn a street people “drive through” into one they “drive to.”
Strong Towns has a word for roads like this: a “stroad,” part street and part road. Montgomery Avenue is asked to be a main street for shops, schools and houses and a fast through route at the same time, and it isn’t great at either. Slower traffic helps the places where people actually stop.
No. In July 2026, FHWA removed road diets, bike lanes and speed cameras from its list of proven safety countermeasures, and it hasn’t said why. Planners in Ohio pointed out that road diets were added to the list in 2012 “after numerous studies over several years showed a demonstrated improvement to overall safety.” Those studies still stand, and the study’s 29% estimate is within FHWA’s published range. What has changed is the money. Federal Safe Streets for All grants now score lane reductions less favorably, so the first phase may need local funding.
No. These are preliminary recommendations, and the study team will revise them after hearing from the public. Final recommendations are due in late 2026 or early 2027. After that, each project still needs funding, and many need PennDOT’s approval. Public support matters at each of those steps.
The study was paid for with a $340,540 federal Safe Streets and Roads for All grant to Lower Merion and Narberth. Construction will take local money plus state and federal grants. A finished plan with community support makes the township more competitive for those grants.
We’re neighbors in Lower Merion and Narberth who walk, bike and drive on Montgomery Avenue. We’re not affiliated with Lower Merion Township, Narberth Borough or the study’s consultants. Questions, corrections, or want to help? hello@safermontgomeryave.org.
Public meetings tend to draw the people who don’t want anything to change. If you’d like Montgomery Avenue to be safer, the most useful thing you can do is say so, in person or in writing.
The study team will present the recommendations and take questions. A full room shows there’s support. Bring a neighbor if you can.
Your note goes to the study team, and we’ll copy your Lower Merion commissioner or Narberth Borough Council. Type your address and we’ll look them up.
If you’ve had a close call on Montgomery Avenue, mention it. One real story is worth more than anything we could write for you. There’s no posted deadline, but the team is revising the recommendations now, so sooner is better.
Most people who live near Montgomery Ave haven’t heard about any of this. A text from a friend is the easiest way to change that, so pick three people and send them the note below.
The final plan still needs funding from the Board of Commissioners and Narberth Borough Council, and that’s when formal public comment matters most. We’ll email you when it’s time, with exactly what to do. That’s all we’ll send, and we won’t share your address.