Jim Wood remembers when Freedom Road was not much more than a cow path.
"This whole area was pretty much country back then. There were never backups on this road," said Wood, who has lived in Cranberry since 1957 and operates an electronics business out of his home on Freedom Road.
Five decades can change a lot.
The 24,000 cars that daily travel Cranberry's 2.5-mile stretch of Freedom Road are at least 238 percent of the road's capacity, according to township officials.
If nothing is done by 2020, the road will be carrying three times the amount of traffic for which it was designed.
"This is a major east-west road for the region, not just for Cranberry. It has major rush-hour delays," said John Trant, Cranberry's chief strategic planning officer.
Yet the backups are unlikely to ease anytime soon. The state, which owns the road, has committed no money to its overhaul or to the renovation of the cramped Freedom Road bridge that crosses the turnpike.
Moreover, officials in Cranberry are more focused on getting funding for renovation and expansion of Route 228, a matter that is in some jeopardy, they say.
PennDOT is "concentrating on structurally deficient bridges, and the Freedom Road bridge is not structurally deficient," Trant said.
The state allocated money to design the bridge, but not to renovate it, which will cost about $10 million, Trant said.
Even though no date is set for upgrading the road, Cranberry officials hope to have a plan in place by December or January. "By the end of the year, we hope to have a plan that is appropriate," Trant said.
Some neighbors, like Wood, say they are concerned about what the township plans to do in order to expand the road.
Some people with homes along Freedom Road would like the township to change the zoning from residential to commercial because they feel they could sell their properties for far more money.
"Turn it commercial. That's what's best for the residents who live here," said Wood, whose home sits on three acres.
Dan Page believes he could receive three to four times the value of his property if it is rezoned as commercial.
"We are not signing off on this road if our zoning is considered residential," Page said.
Both say they expect pressure against commercial zoning to be put on township officials by residents of Sun Valley, a plan with several hundred homes south of their homes.
Trant said that no properties will be rezoned until the state has committed to financing the project. He said competing interests must be taken into account before rezoning.
"We do not know what the land use solution will be in the Freedom Road corridor. You have a real tough situation, and changes have to made in the context of the whole community," he said.
There are five types of zoning on Cranberry's section of the road. Wood, who lives across from a gas station opened in the 1970s, believes the area already is rife with "spot zoning," including commercial properties.
"Why would you have one side of the street zoned commercial and not allow it on the other side?" he asked.
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