Public meeting slated
to discuss Woodhaven

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Two years can seem like an eternity for a road construction project as lane closures and detours cause big-time headaches for motorists and nearby residents.
But the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Woodhaven Road Project operates on a different schedule. For it, two years seem like a New York second.
On Thursday, April 6, a group of Greater Northeast residents who oppose the proposed extension of Woodhaven Road/State Route 63 will host the first public meeting on the project in two years.
The Tri-County Coalition — comprised mostly of suburban denizens along with folks living in the Westwood section of the Northeast’s Somerton neighborhood — will run the 7:30 p.m. meeting in the Lower Moreland High School auditorium. The school is at 555 Red Lion Road in Huntingdon Valley.
According to the president of the Citizens Alliance of Westwood, a member organization of the Tri-County umbrella group, the meeting follows the breakdown of a recent series of private discussions between leading proponents and opponents of the Woodhaven extension.
"The purpose is basically to make the community aware of what the latest plans are," said Gary Peterson, the CAW leader. "(PennDOT officials) have submitted a new plan to the ‘working group.’"
The existing Woodhaven Expressway connects Interstate 95 with Roosevelt Boulevard/U.S. Route 1 in Northeast Philadelphia. The six-lane highway ends abruptly just west of Evans Street, however, funneling westbound traffic onto overcrowded, two-lane Byberry Road.
Plans to extend the expressway as far as the Pennsylvania Turnpike have been discussed for more than a half-century. But in recent years, debate has centered on a more modest plan to extend the road as far as Philmont Avenue, just beyond the Philadelphia municipal border in Huntingdon Valley.
One major community group, the Somerton Civic Association, favors extending the road as a surface-level street along a state-owned right of way through to Philmont. The SCA argues that the road would relieve congestion along Byberry Road and other east-west routes.
But immediate neighbors of the proposed route in Westwood, along with many residents of Lower Moreland Township and Bryn Athyn Borough, claim that a new road would bring unwanted traffic to their front yards and would actually attract more vehicles to the area, rather than alleviate congestion.
PennDOT will not participate in the April 6 meeting, according to spokesman Gene Blaum. The government agency officially has not modified the project, although it acknowledges taking part in closed-door sessions with a "task force" of neighborhood leaders.
"The Woodhaven Road Project continues to be under evaluation," Blaum said. "The task force was formed last fall to take a fresh look at the project."
The state agency hoped to identify common goals shared by community leaders and to forge a compromise. PennDOT officials knew coming in that the idea of a four-lane expressway was an unlikely sell on the Tri-County folks, while a no-build option would fail to relieve traffic in Somerton now and into the future.
Yet, neither community faction was willing to make the leap toward the other’s way of thinking. The sides met monthly from October to January.
"During the meetings, it became evident that there isn’t a consensus for an option such as a two-lane street in the state’s right of way," Blaum said.
The parties agreed on at least a couple of things, Peterson believes.
"Everybody felt that they shouldn’t be bringing truck traffic through the area and that they shouldn’t be bringing any additional traffic through the area," the CAW president said.
After that, however, movement stalled.
"The last meeting was in January and it became apparent in January that there wasn’t going to be a consensus," Peterson said.
The latest official information about current project plans can be found on the PennDOT Web site www.woodhavenroad.com
The Tri-County Coalition offers its own interpretation of the plans on its Web site, www.stopwoodhavenroad.com
Telephone messages left last week by the Northeast Times with the Citizen’s Alliance of Lower Moreland and Bryn Athyn were not returned. Peterson describes that group’s leader, Jim O’Neill, as a driving force behind the Tri-County Coalition.
By calling the April 6 meeting, the Woodhaven extension opponents hope to rejuvenate public interest in their cause after two years of relatively little public discussion.
"We’re trying to get people back in the loop again," Peterson said. "(The project) is nowhere near dead. It’s been active for (two years). It’s just been behind closed doors." ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com