By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer
March Madness is usually reserved for the enthusiastic folks who attend college basketball games.
But raucous student sections had nothing on the crowds that showed up at George Washington High School on March 23 for the latest public meeting on the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Woodhaven Road Project.
The three-hour event featured contemptuous speeches, loud cheers, impassioned boos, flying insults and a walkout protest by one faction, in addition to information sharing among those who wanted to learn more about several proposals to alleviate traffic snarls in the Far Northeast and surrounding communities.
About 700 people attended, according to organizers.
In the end, the true winner of the evening may have been the status quo, as PennDOT announced two days later that it intends in the coming years to focus scarce transportation dollars on maintaining its existing highway system, rather than developing controversial projects that may never reach construction.
The agency named Woodhaven Road on a list of 12 projects to be “re-evaluated” and also said it would “defer” another 14 projects. In all, the 26 projects carry an estimated price tag of $5 billion.
Meanwhile, state Transportation Secretary Allen D. Biehler proposed spending $7.2 billion on 2,600 other highway and bridge improvements in the next dozen years. PennDOT is scheduled to update its 12-year Transportation Program this summer.
Following the announcement, transportation officials in Harrisburg and Southeastern Pennsylvania insisted that the Woodhaven Road Project remains active.
“Basically, in essence, it’s no change,” said Rich Kirkpatrick, the department’s Capitol spokesman. “The list indicates a process that has been ongoing for Woodhaven Road.”
Andrew Warren, PennDOT’s District Six administrator, added: “What we’ve been doing for the last five or six months in this region, specifically with Woodhaven Road, essentially is the re-evaluation of admittedly a big ticket item.”
By the agency’s own estimates, the new highway and related construction could cost in excess of $100 million, depending on the variation of the project chosen from a series of proposals.
The March 23 meeting focused on the two newest plans – one formulated early this year by PennDOT and the other proposed last April by the Tri-County Coalition, a civic organization formed in late 2002 by residents opposed to a highway extension.
Buoyed by a largely incoherent fire-and-brimstone speech by Tri-County Coalition president Jim O’Neill, the organization’s backers cheered loudly, waved sections of yellow construction zone tape distributed by the group at the front door and generally shouted down anyone of a differing opinion.
Warren, who presided over the meeting, repeatedly asked O’Neill to yield the microphone after he had used the two-and-a-half minutes allotted to anyone who wished to speak. O’Neill refused, stating, “I will not sit down, sir.”
After several more minutes of O’Neill’s finger-pointing diatribe, random voices in the audience began shouting for him to “Sit down!” and for PennDOT officials to pull the plug on the public-address system.
After several more speakers also condemned PennDOT’s plan, Mary Jane Hazell, longtime president of the Somerton Civic Association and a leading advocate for the Woodhaven Road extension, rose to speak.
The Tri-County backers greeted her with a deafening round of boos. One woman, who later identified herself as a resident of the Westwood section of Somerton, exclaimed, “Someone shoot her!”
Hazell recounted how residents of Byberry Road just west of Evans Street have suffered for years with highway traffic volumes filtering onto their two-lane neighborhood street.
“We have all of those homes on Byberry Road that have put up with that traffic every morning and every night,” Hazell said.
The civic leader threatened to block traffic along busy neighborhood streets in protest of project delays. Her organization led similar protests last summer.
Then Hazell asked her supporters to join her in walking out of the meeting. Several dozen people followed her up the auditorium aisles and out the rear doors.
The walkout was unplanned, according to Hazell.
“I didn’t know whether they would follow me,” she said.
“We were supportive of Mary Jane,” said Dominic Ragucci, vice president of the SCA. “She hit the nail on the head. I think they were rude to her when she tried to talk.”
Later in the meeting, Warren seemed to agree when he responded to comments by Jim Weldon, president of the Citizens Alliance of Westwood and member of the Tri-County Coalition. Weldon said that PennDOT, the Tri-County group and Somerton Civic Association should all sit down together to work out their differences.
“It would be very helpful,” Warren said. “Unfortunately, the people you want to meet with had to leave (tonight) because they were shouted down.”
Opinions were mixed among residents randomly interviewed in the lobby outside the auditorium.
Somerton’s Marty Feldman thinks local roads aren’t going to get any better.
“I’ve seen a number of these plans and listened to a lot of ideas and schemes and so forth,” Feldman said. “My opinion is leave things as they are. This area is saturated (with traffic). If you build (the new road) it’s only a question of time until it will get saturated. If you build it, they will come.”
Huntingdon Valley’s John Froggatt thinks to do nothing would be to ignore the area’s basic transportation needs. Besides, he argues, the Woodhaven Road extension was in the works long before most opponents ever moved into the area, so they can’t claim hardship.
“Anybody who moved in here in the last thirty years and says they didn’t know Woodhaven Road was coming through are liars,” said Froggatt, who has been in the same Philmont Avenue home for more than 40 years.
Like Hazell, he feels Woodhaven Road opponents crossed the line with disruptive and insulting tactics at the meeting.
“At other meetings, I’ve had some say. But here, with this group, I’m not putting up with that,” he said.
Meanwhile, some homeowners didn’t particularly care what the outcome might be, as long as it didn’t infringe on their own properties.
Sam Khmelnitsky, who lives near Philmont Avenue and Byberry Road, was happy that PennDOT’s plan wouldn’t impact him negatively.
“It looks like it won’t,” he said.
He admits his opinion might be different if he were to lose property in the deal. Yet, as a local commuter, he would welcome some traffic relief, too.
“I travel every day on Woodhaven Road. It’s very congested,” Khmelnitsky said. “Definitely we need some construction — especially (at) Bustleton and Byberry. It’s absolutely incredible.”
Warren, the PennDOT district administrator, said that the agency had reached no conclusions based on feedback it received at Washington High. The agency will continue in a public comment period for the next 12 to 18 months, Warren said.
After that, the department would produce a Final Environmental Impact Statement and, ultimately, decide on a specific plan to submit to federal transportation officials for approval and funding.
The start of construction would be years away. ••
William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com