So you want to know what area residents were saying one night last week at Lower Moreland High School during the latest public hearing on the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Woodhaven Road/Route 63 project?
Then read the June 25, 1997, edition of the Northeast Times. An article published that day reported the comments offered by Somerton and Lower Moreland Township homeowners during the last Woodhaven Road hearing, held on June 19, 1997, at the Watson T. Comly School on Byberry Road.
PennDOT has since broadened the geographical scope of the project to include more of Lower Moreland and has added a third “build” option to go along with the two previous ones and a “no-build” alternative.
Yet, the public comments at last week’s hearing, held Jan. 29, bore a striking resemblance to those of the 1997 session.
The repetitive nature of the latest debate even found some participants not arguing the merits and pitfalls of the various alternatives, but instead, exasperated, urging PennDOT to do something with the community’s recommendations— do anything.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
“Since (the 1997 meeting), it’s been five years, and we keep hearing that the money is in the budget,” said a man who declined to identify himself to the hundreds in attendance. “(Meanwhile) traffic keeps increasing on Byberry Road. The longer we take to build it, there’s going to be more houses and more businesses affected.”
Others at last week’s hearing called the event a waste of their time and the public’s money.
In 1997, the delays were all too familiar to Somerton resident Edward R. Zebrowski, who proclaimed at the Comly School meeting: “They do environmental studies, then they don’t have the money in the budget (to build it). Then when they do have the money, they need a new environmental study. Who’s going to decide this?”
According to PennDOT District 6 Administrator Andrew Warren, the objective of the Lower Moreland High School meeting was to “hear your opinions” and “hear your concerns.”
“Everyone is entitled to have their opinion heard,” Warren said at the outset.
Even so, the need for a final decision on a course of action was not lost on the former Bucks County commissioner. The origins of the project can be traced to the mid-1950s when officials conceived of a road linking Interstate 95 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The existing section of the highway, linking I-95 with Roosevelt Boulevard, was completed in the 1960s. The rest of the project was put on hold, although PennDOT bought land for the extension, demolishing 35 existing homes in the process.
Studies continued through the 1970s before budgetary constraints delayed progress in the 1980s, according to project officials. Studies resumed in the 1990s as the state consulted with the federal government. About 80 percent of the cost — estimated at between $40 million and $50 million, depending on the chosen alternative — will be paid for by federal tax dollars.
Currently, Byberry Road between the end of the existing expressway and Bustleton Avenue handles about 32,000 vehicles a day. Just west of Bustleton, Byberry sees about 18,000 vehicles a day. Meanwhile, Bustleton handles more than 30,000 vehicles a day both north and south of Byberry.
BURIED ALIVE?
“I suggest that it’s time to either build this project or bury it,” Warren said, prompting enthusiastic applause and roars of “bury it” from no-build advocates.
The “build” factions followed shortly thereafter with their own show of vociferous support for comments by Joseph D. Steward, chief of staff to state Sen. Mike Stack (D-5th dist.).
“As far as the senator is concerned, doing nothing is absolutely unacceptable,” Steward said. “Building a road is one reason his constituents sent him to Harrisburg, and he intends to do that.”
Stack, like other state lawmakers from the area, did not attend the meeting. On the same night, a debate on a pivotal medical malpractice insurance bill was held in the state capital.
Steward also said that Stack had been misquoted in a newspaper article published that day in which the senator reportedly said he supported the widening of Byberry Road west of Worthington Road.
Vince Furlong, an aide to state Rep. George Kenney (R-170th dist.), read a statement calling for progress on the project and supporting an alternative that would extend the Woodhaven expressway west to Philmont Avenue. In August 1998, the legislator conducted a survey of his constituents, who overwhelmingly supported the extension.
“More than six hundred (people) responded,” Furlong said. “Eighty-three percent favored the Woodhaven Road extension plan. He agrees with them.”
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE . . .
Kenney can be assured of one thing: the various public opinions about the project haven’t changed much since the survey or the 1997 public hearing.
For example, in 1997, Somerton resident Joe Pinciotti said a proposal to widen Byberry Road from two lanes to four would “take away all of Somerton” because of the number of homes and other buildings that would have to be demolished.
Another person, who requested anonymity, said that extending the Woodhaven Expressway “is the only way to go.”
“Why uproot these people (on Byberry Road)?” the person queried.
Meanwhile, many residents of Somerton’s Westwood section — the area west of Bustleton Avenue and south of Byberry Road — spoke against the expressway extension, including Marvin Levine. The extension would abut many of the Westwood properties and homes, which were built after PennDOT had purchased the adjacent ground for the highway.
“I’m adamantly opposed to building the Woodhaven extension,” Levine told the 1997 crowd, estimated at 500 people. “I think it would be destructive to a community (that) I’m part of that is quite peaceful. There are children playing in the street. There are no eighteen-wheelers.”
At the time, just like now, Lower Moreland Township residents were predominantly opposed to the full extension, too.
“It will bring in more pollution, additional cars and crime. It will ruin a residential area,” said Alexis Cohen, one of the suburbanites.
Last week’s meeting, which lasted more than three hours, was a similar exercise in warring opinions.
CIVIC PREZ: WE WILL CLOSE IT
As far as Somerton Civic Association president Mary Jane Hazell is concerned, widening Byberry Road is not an option.
“We will not allow it. We will close it before we allow them to widen Byberry Road,” she said.
Yet, Donna Testa, a Westwood resident who also spoke out at the 1997 hearing, opposes the Woodhaven extension. The expressway would sit 31 feet from her curb. Her home is among those residences that were built along the existing right-of-way.
“If, in fact, this project has been going on for so long, then (the Westwood homes) shouldn’t have been built,” Testa said. “But they were built, and people are living there. I don’t think there should be a highway thirty-one feet from my front door.”
A man who said he has lived on Byberry Road east of Bustleton Avenue since 1955 agrees with Testa on one count.
“Those homes never should have been built until this has been decided,” he said.
Yet, he wants to see PennDOT follow through on the original plans to extend Woodhaven Road along the right-of-way.
“When I bought my house, it was with the understanding that Woodhaven Road would be built down in the hollow (the right-of-way) and that we’d be a secondary street,” he said.
Edward Lewis, a resident of the city’s 66th Ward, which does not include any territory west of Roosevelt Boulevard, demanded that Warren give him a refund for the tax dollars PennDOT spent to acquire the right-of-way in the 1970s.
“I would like my refund tonight,” Lewis said.
SHIFTING THE PROBLEM
Sandy Weisner, a resident of Byberry Road in Lower Moreland, said that, with the highway extension option, “You’re (moving) traffic from one area of Byberry Road to another residential area of Byberry Road.”
A man from Philmont Avenue in Lower Moreland argued that, if the highway extension is built, PennDOT should upgrade the entire local network of roads. Another Lower Moreland man disagreed, stating that the suburban intersections should be improved in such a case, but roads such as Byberry Road should remain two lanes.
One man, who did not identify himself, offered a plan not included in PennDOT’s list of alternatives.
“Stop Woodhaven at Route 1,” he said, theorizing that such a move would prompt westward motorists to travel south on Roosevelt Boulevard and use Red Lion Road or another east-west artery instead of Byberry.
“It seems to me,” said Westwood resident Jim Weldon, “the alternative (to select) should be the one with the least amount of impact on the families involved.”
Warren, who offered occasional points of order but did not engage in the debate, nor answer questions, told the meeting-goers that their comments and questions were being recorded for later review. The questions and answers, he said, might be posted on a Web site created for the project, www.woodhavenroad.com
Somerton resident Joe Needham was skeptical of the ability of affected residents to draw objective conclusions about the four current alternatives.
“Everybody that’s here tonight is here for themselves,” Needham said. “It’s ‘do it anywhere, but don’t do it in my back yard.’ It’s a disgrace that we have to have neighbors coming here and fighting each other.”
Needham called upon PennDOT to take the next step and not to leave it in the hands of the divided community.
“Make a decision. We’ll fight you if we don’t like it,” he said.