By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is trying to do the Woodhaven Road Project by the book. Last week, a city councilman joined a local civic association in proclaiming that it’s time to throw out the book.
Councilman Brian O’Neill and Somerton Civic Association president Mary Jane Hazell jointly condemned plans by the state to “acquire” and demolish potentially dozens of local businesses and homes to make room for road improvements linked to the Woodhaven project.
While the four different “build” proposals offered up by PennDOT in a 300-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement released on May 23 all include a series of road and intersection widenings, Hazell and O’Neill want the state agency to stick with the basics.
“For me, it’s an irrelevant study,” said O’Neill (R-10th dist.), speaking at the SCA meeting on June 10 at Walker Lodge 306, “because the only viable alternative is to use the existing right of way.
“That’s the one plan I thought ninety-nine percent of Somerton agreed upon, and it’s not in the study.”
Said Hazell: “If PennDOT doesn’t want to do it that way, then (it should) give the land back to the city of Philadelphia and let them put in a city street.”
The civic leader added that she will call upon PennDOT to do exactly that when she testifies on Tuesday during a public hearing on the project at the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory, at Roosevelt Boulevard and Southampton Road.
PennDOT will take live testimony from members of the general public between 2 and 10 p.m.
Hazell said she’ll show up sometime in the evening hours. Those who attend must show a photo ID to enter the building because of security concerns.
A second session will be held two days later, Thursday, June 26, at Lower Moreland High School from 2 to 10 p.m.
Hazell encouraged the residents at her meeting to show up for the PennDOT hearing and speak their minds, regardless if they support or oppose the project.
“It is imperative that you attend these meetings,” Hazell said. “If you’re against (the project), speak against it. If you’re for it, speak for it. But those who sit back and do nothing at all deserve what you get.”
Though the SCA has “voted on, re-voted on and voted on again a hundred times” to support extending the existing Woodhaven Road Expressway westward to terminate at Philmont Avenue, many of the folks who attended the SCA meeting voiced their opposition, notably members of the Citizens Alliance of Westwood.
The state-owned right of way — a 180-foot-wide strip of overgrown underbrush and trees — was created in the mid-1970s after PennDOT received approval from the Federal Highway Administration to go ahead with the project.
The state agency purchased 110 city properties, including 35 occupied homes, at a cost of about $3 million to make room for the road.
Budget problems and community opposition contributed to a series of delays. In the late 1990s, citing community input and federal requirements for traffic projection, PennDOT expanded the basic project to include modifications to a series of other roads.
They include: Bustleton Avenue, Byberry Road, Philmont Avenue, Huntingdon Pike, County Line Road and Northeast Avenue.
O’Neill vowed to kill any plan that includes widening city streets and taking private properties.
“Anything that widens Bustleton Avenue above Byberry Road is dead because it’s not going through City Council,” he declared.
According to the councilman, the expansion of the so-called project area and addition of plans to widen these roads has drawn project opponents into the debate who otherwise wouldn’t have had an interest.
For example, the plan to extend Northeast Avenue in Somerton from its existing terminus near Rennard Street to Byberry Road directly affects residents of the Timberwalk development.
Fearing spillover traffic from the new Woodhaven Road, the Timberwalk Civic Association has sided with opponents to the project.
O’Neill, Hazell and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation — which owns dozens of acres of land next to Timberwalk — all oppose extending Northeast Avenue.
“Northeast Avenue has been dragged into it. PIDC is not advocating doing anything with Northeast Avenue. We are not advocating extension of the road,” said PIDC vice president Paul Deegan, who lives in Somerton.
Without changes to Northeast Avenue, O’Neill believes, Timberwalk should not oppose the project.
“This won’t affect them one way or the other,” the councilman said.
Similarly, O’Neill said, if PennDOT removes plans to widen portions of County Line Road from the project, “I think it takes Bucks County out completely. Then you’ll definitely be dealing with a Philadelphia County into Montgomery County road.”
Simply, O’Neill and Hazell envision a four-lane expressway between Evans Street and Bustleton Avenue, then a two-lane city-style street the rest of the way westward to Philmont Avenue.
“The entire plan would be contained within the right of way,” O’Neill said.
“Let (Montgomery) County decide what to do with Byberry (Road) once you get past Philmont.” ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com