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Inter-municipal Route 896 task force convenes

Five municipalities band together to resolve traffic issues.

With over 1400 new homes slated to be developed along Route 896 from Upper Oxford to the Delaware state line and countless others set back on feeder roads which dump out onto the congestion state road, five Route 896 "host" municipalities have banded together to protect the health, safety and welfare of residents.

Hosted at literally the mid-point of the Route 896 corridor, by New London Township, representatives from Upper Oxford, Penn, New London, and Franklin townships sat down with State Senator Dominic Pileggi, R-9, of Chester, to discuss their ideas and formulate a game plan addressing both short-term and long-term goals. [London Britain Township is also a member but was not represented at this meeting].

New London Township supervisor Dale Lauver will chair the task force. New London supervisors Jack Arrell and Bob Barto, New London engineer Ron Ragan, Penn supervisors Henry McKinney and Victor Mantegna, Franklin supervisor Vaughn Charlton, and Upper Oxford's Betsy Huber were in attendance.

At what will be the first of many meetings, the group quickly, and unilaterally, identified several goals. First, to regionally establish common road design standards for developers. Second, bring other roads in the region up to those mutually established standards for the safest and best flow of traffic. Finally, to identify trouble spots and potential solutions.

The first goal may be the easiest, as the group would like to recommend that each township adopt uniform ordinances from "Lancaster to the Delaware line." Rather than re-inventing the wheel, it seems likely they will follow the lead of the township with the most stringent road ordinances.

"We want the ordinances uniform all the way down the line. Penn Township has conducted five studies in zoning and subdivision and land development ordinances and we probably have the most stringent. We [Penn Township] make the developers do all of the road improvements, limit them to two entrances, that sort of thing," said Mantegna.

PennDOT's method of road planning, or lack of it, was also on the hot seat, and may also have been the impetus for these municipalities to undertake a joint traffic planning effort.

"There are pitfalls in PennDOT's planning. We need to find a way around that kind of antiquated thinking. Townships need to help themselves and find a chink in the armor of PennDOT," said Arrell.

Arrell, also New London's longtime roadmaster, has had literally decades of experience with the state's transportation department. He explained in detail PennDOT's planning process, which includes a 25-year plan, 12-year plan and 5-year plan. According to Arrell, the 12-year plan is the process by which townships annually send their wish list to PennDOT. "That's how they schedule road replacements," he said. Although those replacements often take years, a prime example of that would be the Route 41 resolution which Arrell recalls talking about with the department 20 years ago.

"Whatever we do will make the 5-year plan a little better. It won't kill as many people," said Arrell.

Additionally, the legions of bureaucracy that townships (that are often financially strapped or lacking in sufficient personnel) must navigate make it difficult to get anything done through the department. But not so for well-funded and well-staffed developers.

"Lately, developers have done an end run and gone directly to PennDOT without preliminary Board of Supervisors approval and often these are questionable designs. We need PennDOT to support the townships and not review the plans until it has the blessing of the township," said Charlton.

"Come up with a plan and I can help you with getting the attention of the right people there," said Pileggi.

Funding of this effort will be an issue, as the task force would like to hire its own traffic planner and land planner.

"Townships don't have the budgetary wherewithal to go out and fix Route 896," said Ragan.

Pileggi told the task force he felt that this was the kind of program a number of different agencies would like to support. Referring to the already in place joint planning effort between New London and Penn Townships which identified traffic as a major issue for joint resolution, Pileggi suggested the group begin by approaching Chester County's Vision Partnership grant for funding, or possibly in this case additional funding, to that already being provided for the Penn/New London Joint Planning effort.

"The goal of the legislation was to encourage as much joint planning as possible. With that in mind, three is better than two, and four is better than three...Present it to the county for a limited scope of transportation planning under the umbrella of joint planning," he said.

One weakness of the effort was pointed out by Lauver, "The problem is not just developments on Route 896, but those set back in, impacting 896. Those developments, like the ones in East Nottingham which impact Route 896 at Oxford Road, are out of reach."

The next meeting will be held on Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. at the New London Township building.

©Avon Grove Sun 2004