Major downtown repaving project begins Monday in Doylestown

DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH, PA — A long-awaited PennDOT milling and resurfacing project is scheduled to begin Monday, July 22 in the heart of Doylestown Borough.

For three days, two blocks of West State Street will be closed and rerouted between Main Street and Five Points, city officials announced at the July City Council meeting.

That part of West State is home to a number of restaurants and businesses, including the Doylestown Hotel, 86 West, Paganini, Domani Star and the Penn Taproom.

“State Street will be closed for three days and that will have a significant impact,” said Deputy City Manager Phil Ehlinger. “We’ve done extensive outreach to businesses and given them advance notice. PennDOT is going to mill it on Monday and pave it on Tuesday.
and fill in the cracks on Wednesday.”

The city’s public works department will continue painting the lines Wednesday, Ehlinger said. “We’re going to try to get that street open as quickly as possible,” he said.

Borough Manager John Davis credited Sen. Steve Santarsiero and Rep. Tim Brennan for lobbying hard and pushing “PennDOT’s feet” to pave those two blocks of freeway. “It’s been a long time coming. We’ve really worked hard,” he said.

That said, Davis added, “On Thursday we’re going to be bugging PennDOT about the rest of State Street.

“We’re not satisfied and we’re not stopping with those blocks,” he said. “There are long stretches of East and West State Street that still need attention and we’re going to keep working until all of State Street is done.”

Ehlinger also reported that the city will repave four streets beginning Monday, July 22, as part of its 2024 road repaving program. Those streets include West Court between Lafayette and Memorial, the entire length of Lafayette, West Oakland between Clinton and Franklin, and half a lane of Lincoln.

The last row of roads in the borough to be paved are East Court between Broad and Main, Lacey Avenue north to Church, and Broad Street between Union and Doyle.

This completes the 2024 paving schedule, which Ehlinger said includes “a significant number of roads.”