By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer
The private Woodhaven Road meetings are over. And despite some community opposition to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s latest plan, the so-called Reduced Impact Alternative is still very much alive, according to a senior official with the state agency.
On Feb. 12, PennDOT Region 6 administrator Andrew Warren met with leaders of the Tri-County Coalition at Lower Moreland High School and outlined the new proposal for the alleviation of traffic snarls in the Route 63 corridor.
A week later, Warren showed the same plans to leaders of the Somerton Civic Association at the Walker Lodge 306.
The Tri-County group, which is based in Huntingdon Valley and has members living in Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties, voted down the plan. Somerton Civic took no formal vote, but leaders of that organization are expected to discuss and perhaps vote on the new plan at their upcoming general membership meeting next Tuesday.
Somerton Civic president Mary Jane Hazell declined to comment on the new plan until after her group’s general meeting, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Walker Lodge, 1290 Southampton Road.
But regardless of the outcome of any Somerton vote, Warren said, the state agency will still show the new plan to all comers in an upcoming public meeting.
A date for that session has not been set. It is expected to occur by the end of March.
Last month, a PennDOT spokesman said the site would be George Washington High School, at Bustleton Avenue and Verree Road.
“The meetings of the last two weeks have been very instructive, very positive,” Warren said. “But did any of them create a death knell on the project or cause anybody to go out and buy groundbreaking shovels? The answer is no.”
The primary feature of the Reduced Impact Alternative is the hotly debated Woodhaven Road extension, which would run westward about two miles from the expressway’s current Evans Street terminus to Philmont Avenue in Huntingdon Valley.
Folks in Huntingdon Valley have long opposed any new road of the sort, alleging it would simply move Somerton’s traffic problems a few miles westward into their communities.
Many homeowners in Somerton’s Westwood section have long opposed the extension, too, arguing that the road would carve through the heart of their residential neighborhood, leaving pollution, noise and plummeting property values in its wake.
Both communities are strongly represented on the Tri-County Coalition board, as are Upper and Lower Southampton townships in Bucks, and the Timberwalk development, also in Somerton.
According to Timberwalk Association vice president Ernie Tartaglia, who attended the Feb. 12 closed meeting, the Tri-County leaders saw an improved plan, but it was one they still could not fundamentally endorse.
One published report stated that the group spent just 10 minutes reviewing the new plan, which may cost in excess of $100 million, before rejecting it on the grounds that it didn’t deviate enough from earlier plans previously rejected by the coalition.
“We were very grateful that PennDOT met with us to begin with and were happy to see that they had adopted a lot of our ideas for signal changes and traffic improvements,” Tartaglia said. “But we really didn’t see changes, we saw improvements.”
In other words, the Woodhaven Road extension was not taken off of the table.
Tartaglia characterized the plan as similar to one proposed by U.S. Rep. Joe Hoeffel (D-13th dist.) last June in which work would be performed in two phases, led by the Woodhaven extension portion. Hoeffel suggested taking a wait-and-see approach to other road widenings in the project area, hoping to protect some property owners from negative impacts.
PennDOT says the new plan is a revised version of its earlier Bustleton Avenue Modified Alternative. Details of the Reduced Impact Alternative obtained by the Northeast Times indicate that it eliminates many of the secondary road projects included in the earlier Bustleton Modified plan.
The Somerton Civic Association endorsed Hoeffel’s first phase last year. However, Hazell, the civic president, spoke out against any second phase work that would result in the condemnation of residential or commercial property in the area.
Northeast-based elected officials, including state Sen. Mike Stack, state Rep. George Kenney and City Councilman Brian O’Neill, formally endorsed Hoeffel’s plan last year, too.
The yet-to-be scheduled PennDOT meeting will resemble meetings held in past years at Lower Moreland High School and the Watson T. Comly Elementary School in Somerton, according to Warren.
“What we’ll be saying then is under preparation now,” the PennDOT administrator said. “What we envision is those boards with pictures and drawings, and that (residents) will be coming up to ask questions of our consultants and PennDOT employees.”
Following the open house, Warren added, there will be a multimedia presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session.
The session will not be a formal hearing, however. No stenographer will be taking notes. Questions and answers will be limited to the details of the plan.
“It will be a general presentation on what people will be looking at and what the next steps will be,” Warren said. “There will not be testimony in a legal sense of the word and there will not be a debate.”
Visit the Web site www.woodhavenroad.com for more information about the Woodhaven Road project. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com