On Sept. 19 a resident told Lower Saucon Township Council members that truck traffic on Easton Road has damaged her house and affected her lifestyle.

Joan Madzarac said large trucks are using Easton Road and Cherry Lane to reach Route 412, rumbling past her home by day and night and causing mortar to fall out of her chimney and basement windows to crack.

Madzarac's home is near the intersection of Easton Road and Cherry Lane.

“These trucks are huge,” she said. “They’re loaded way to the top.”

Madzarac said her home is only 30 feet from the roadway, and she told council she's frightened that a truck could crash into it.

“When it rains they slip and slide because there must be oil on Cherry Lane,” she said.

Hellertown Police chief Robert Shupp recently told Borough Council that he thinks the speed limit on Cherry Lane should be lowered.

Both Easton Road and Cherry Lane are state-controlled roads.

Madzarac questioned why the trucks that are passing her house can't use a short-cut to Bethlehem's Commerce Center Boulevard in order to reach Route 412 and Interstate 78, and forego the Cherry Lane route altogether.

She claimed that a road that bisected the old Coke Works property north of I-78 was closed in 1945 because of World War Two-related sabotage fears and never reopened.

“There must be a road from 412 to the warehouse for these trucks to travel other than Easton Road,” she said to council. “It is getting so dangerous. It is really, really bad and I want something done about it.”

“I’m going to fight them if I have to,” she added.

Council vice president Tom Maxfield told Madzarac he sympathizes with her situation, and he said the short cut through the old Coke Works "is still there."

"It’s not right," he said. "There’s something wrong with the traffic patterns."

Township manager Jack Cahalan said he wasn't aware of any prohibitions on truck traffic on Easton Road, but that he would verify that.

Maxfield said he doubted the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation would consider limiting truck traffic or reducing the speed on the road, since it was upgraded to allow for increased commerce just a few years ago.

"I'll bet PennDOT’s going to look at it per road condition," he told Madzarac, who implored council to help her address the traffic situation near her home.

"One of these days I’m going to get hit down there," she said. "That’s how bad it is."