Questions remain after
Woodhaven meeting

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Somerton residents who gathered at the Ephraim Goldstein Apartments last week hoping for answers about the latest plans to extend Woodhaven Road didn’t get them.
Instead, officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and an engineering firm hired by the state agency were the ones asking most of the questions at two so-called community workshops. They wanted to know what the people want to see on the new road.
Local folks were to have two more opportunities to speak their minds this week, as additional meetings were scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday, March 11 and 13, at St. Andrew’s-in-the-field Episcopal Church, 500 Somerton Ave. The Thursday session starts at 6 p.m. (The Northeast Times in last week’s editions erroneously reported the fourth meeting date as March 12.)
"We don’t have a new alternative to tell you all about," Steve Nieman, project manager for the McCormick Taylor engineering firm, told residents. "We have a new idea that we’re working on. We want to work with you to further develop the idea."
Nieman explained that the latest idea is based on community feedback dating back years, as well as a "change in thinking in the transportation industry" toward road building projects.
Until now, Woodhaven Road had always been envisioned as a regional transportation solution. But project officials have learned that the highly developed residential community surrounding the project site isn’t willing to accept many of the negative impacts associated with a new highway, ranging from the aesthetic to the environmental.
The fact that a scaled-down project will also save money is another big factor in an era when PennDOT has shifted scarce resources to maintenance projects, particularly bridge inspection and repair.
The new concept is a parkway-style surface road with connecting cross streets. It will extend west from the current terminus of the Woodhaven Expressway at Evans Street, across the CSX railroad and along an existing right-of-way at least as far as Bustleton Avenue.
The road is intended to relieve congestion on Byberry Road, which is a bottleneck for traffic entering and leaving the existing expressway at Evans Street.
While a previous Woodhaven Road proposal carried a price tag of around $130 million, PennDOT is looking to spend about $30 million on the new "Community Connections" initiative. Federal tax dollars will pay 80 percent, and state money will cover the balance.
"We’re not looking to address regional mobility, only the local traffic problem. And we’re not looking to bring any additional traffic into the community," Nieman told the group of about 50 residents from both sides of the Philadelphia-Montgomery County border.
Later in the meeting, the project manager acknowledged that the major sticking point on any new road will be its access to truck traffic. Though at odds on other points, residents throughout the project area have long agreed that big rigs and other heavy trucks don’t belong on the neighborhood streets of Somerton.
"The trucks are an issue. I think they will be an issue for a while because I can’t give you an answer (about them)," Nieman said.
Under the current configuration, trucks weighing more than three tons are prohibited from entering the residential area of Somerton via Byberry Road. But that’s only because of a weight restriction on the temporary bridge spanning the CSX railroad.
The temporary bridge was erected more than a decade ago to replace a failing permanent bridge. PennDOT has always intended to replace the bridge with a permanent one, and it will do so whether or not a new Woodhaven Road is built, Nieman said.
PennDOT cannot place weight restrictions on its structurally sound permanent bridges because that would be considered a "restriction of commerce," Nieman said.
If the new road does not materialize, the new bridge would continue serving overburdened Byberry Road.
"That bridge will be replaced. I think we’re down to two options now," said Nieman, noting that under the status quo many trucks routinely disregard the bridge weight limit anyway.
With a three-ton limit, vehicles such as school buses, some parcel delivery trucks, fire engines and some ambulances are generally banned, in addition to tractor-trailers.
The project manager expressed his sympathy for the wishes of neighbors.
"If there is a way of prohibiting truck traffic in Somerton, I will work on it," he said.
Nieman denied ongoing accusations by members of the Woodhaven extension opposition group Tri-County Coalition that PennDOT seeks to link the Hornig Road industrial park directly to the new road. Hornig Road now connects to Roosevelt Boulevard just north of the Woodhaven interchange. There is no other outlet.
"No Hornig Road connection is proposed," Nieman said.
Though the current idea is to end the new road at Bustleton Avenue, residents of Somerton are divided on that concept. Folks living west of Bustleton Avenue near the existing right of way have long opposed any new construction in their section. They argue that a new road would simply re-route traffic past their doorsteps.
However, Somerton Civic Association president Mary Jane Hazell and many in her organization claim that ending the new road at Bustleton Avenue will worsen traffic congestion on that artery and hurt local businesses as local consumers try to avoid the mess.
Nieman told residents at the March 4 meeting that project officials and the community must decide what to do with the right of way west of Bustleton Avenue. The corridor is now occupied by woods as far west as Audubon Avenue.
Nieman credited state Sen. Mike Stack (D-5th dist.) and state Rep. George Kenney (R-170th dist.) for advocating in Harrisburg for a revival of the project.
Joe Stewart, Stack’s chief of staff, said at the meeting, "I can tell you, we have the political will to make sure this gets done." ••
For more project information, visit www.woodhavenroad.com
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com