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Bethlehem ConnectPlanning phase — home

Bethlehem Connect · Place sheet · Station area 1 · South

I-78 Park & Ride (Hellertown P&R)

Southern terminus · regional bus transfers · park-and-ride

Phase 1 · conditional target 2029

Typology: Interchange / park-and-ride

Planning phase. An independent plan; nothing is funded or built yet.

Locator map of I-78 Park & Ride (Hellertown P&R) and the lines around it
  • 1I-78 Park & Ride

Connect Spine (Phase 1)River Line (Phase 1)Dashed: options and if-demand linksGondola optionLANTA EBS today

Why here

A southern endpoint where students, workers, visitors and event traffic can switch from car or regional bus to frequent electric service, instead of driving into the city.

Program ideas (planning phase)

  • Regional and intercity bus bays
  • Park-and-ride
  • Solar carport (option ≈1 MWdc)
  • Terminal charger with battery to trim peaks
  • Bike lockers

Every station also gets the station kit: level boarding, shelter, lighting, real-time screens, bike racks, a rain garden and a sorting point for recycling, compost and trash.

What exists today

  • A park-and-ride is reported behind Turkey Hill off Silvex Rd near I-78 Exit 67; site, spaces and ownership are unverified.
Map of the southern section: I-78 Park & Ride, Hellertown Main Street and Goodman, with the Saucon Rail Trail (opens the full-size image)
Southern section: Spine from the I-78 P&R to Hellertown Main St, then west to Goodman; Valley Express option along Rt 412; Saucon Rail Trail in green. Shaded areas mark station areas, not sites. The gondola option is drawn as a line only (about 12 towers; sites illustrative).

Measured here

Lines
Connect Spine — electric BRT · Valley Express — bus option
Elevation
84 m (USGS 3DEP)
Future train access
Sits on the rail-ready valley corridor at I-78 Park & Ride.
Stop option nearby
South Bethlehem (City parkland): an optional stop on the Valley Express, 0.69 km from here, only if a separately proposed park is built

Still unknown

  • Exact site, number of spaces and ownership (PennDOT P&R records, LANTA)
  • Saucon Creek flooding is separate from the river and needs checking

Place sheet v1.5 · 22 October 2026 · website-five-tau-72.vercel.app/files/places/i-78-park-and-ride.pdf

Bethlehem Connect is an independent plan by David Fischbarg, in the planning phase. Nothing is funded or built yet. It is not an official project of, or endorsed by, any agency, university, hospital, company or the City named on this sheet. No route, station or facility has been surveyed, engineered or funded. No passenger trains run in Bethlehem today, and no regional rail route has been chosen. Data: Overture Maps 2026-09-23.1 (© OpenStreetMap contributors; ESA WorldCover, CC BY 4.0), USGS 3DEP terrain, LANTA 2022 timetable (service has changed since). Lines are corridors on existing streets, not engineered routes.