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PennDot drops plans for 26 projects
March 26, 2004
Jere Downs, Inquirer Staff Writer
Philadelphia Inquirer

Looking to conserve money and preserve land, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation chopped 26 bridge and highway projects worth $5 billion from its to-do-list yesterday, officially stopping or re-evaluating four controversial projects in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Route 202 from Doylestown to Montgomeryville, the Woodhaven Expressway in Philadelphia, and Route 41 in southern Chester County all will be re-evaluated. PennDot's announcement yesterday also effectively ends plans for the widening of Blair Mill Road, a strangled artery in eastern Montgomery County.

Transportation Secretary Allen Biehler said the economies come as the state faces "a tightening financial picture and ongoing concerns about the impact transportation decisions have on Pennsylvania's landscape."

Some local transportation officials said Gov. Rendell's cuts had a political goal in mind: an increase in the state gas tax.

"I think they are setting the stage for that by saying, 'We don't have the money for these big projects,' " said John Coscia, who oversees Southeastern Pennsylvania's $400 million annual road budget as director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. "I'm pretty sure that over the next year, Gov. Rendell and the legislature will go with a gas tax increase."

On Wednesday, Biehler met with transportation officials from across the state in Harrisburg to identify $7.2 million to pay for 2,600 projects in the first four years of the state's 12-year transportation plan. He also ordered "re-evaluation" of 12 projects in the long-range plan worth $3 billion, and "deferral" of 14 projects valued at $2 billion.

"Given the circumstances, it does not make sense to continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on planning and preliminary design work for projects that simply will not be able to move to construction because the funds are not there," Biehler said.

For costly and controversial projects such as Route 41, the 202 Bypass and the Woodhaven Expressway, PennDot's action means the region must find consensus or a different, preferably cheaper resolution, Coscia said.

"Basically, we cannot move forward on those projects until we look at some other options or make sure the project is correct," Coscia said.

Reevaluation of road projects also comes as Rendell and PennDot pursue new policies designed to limit suburban sprawl and still achieve economic growth, PennDot spokesman Richard Kirkpatrick said.

Those policies were articulated in Rendell's Land Use and Transportation Action Plan, a long-awaited document also released locally yesterday.

Resulting from a conference last year called by Rendell to coordinate transportation and land use, the plan called first for state infrastructure investment in existing cities and towns.

Examples of diverse needs for scarce transportation dollars are abundant in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Consider that $1 billion will be required in coming years to rebuild the half-century-old I-95. In turn, I-95 is competing with the $400 million Route 202 bypass, forecast by critics to exacerbate sprawling land use in central Bucks County. PennDot has only about $200 million in the pipeline for I-95 rehab.

"We have to triage here and look carefully at what we spend money on," said Joanne Denworth, senior director of policy for Rendell and former director of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, one of the state's leading "smart-growth" advocacy groups. "We have to fix our interstates and what we have."

At the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission's monthly meeting yesterday, county and city officials were given a copy of Rendell's plan.

Two of the highways in question are undergoing extensive review. Route 41 — which stretches nine miles through southern Chester County — and Route 202 are being studied by consultants to determine whether European-style roundabouts could help solve traffic problems.

Route 202 supporters who have waited decades for a highway interpreted PennDot's latest move as another blow for the bypass opposed in court by northern Bucks County municipalities.

"It sounds like it is a dead deal," Montgomery Township Supervisors' Chairman Steven Prousi said.

Further delays of new expressways had environmentalists celebrating yesterday.

"PennDot is really going in the right direction in terms of thinking about land-use impacts and transportation investments," said Janet Milkman, director of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania. "The fact that we are now taking a step back and thinking about alternatives is a good sign."

Re-evaluating Route 41, a dangerous two-lane road popular with truckers heading between Delaware and central Pennsylvania, is "not solving any of the problem out here," lamented Trish Fagan, a Chester County resident who favors an expressway. An expressway for Route 41 is one of many alternatives that had been under review.

In contrast, planning and study have taken place since the early 1980s to widen Blair Mill Road from two to four lanes in eastern Montgomery County. PennDot has proposed spending about $20 million to improve the three-mile stretch from County Line Road to Route 63 on the border of Horsham and Upper Moreland Townships. A similar statewide fiscal crunch delayed progress on Blair Mill Road in 1998. The project was reactivated but in 2001 many residents rebelled against the prospect of up to 42 homes and four businesses being demolished.

Also decades in the planning, the fate of Woodhaven Expressway continues to be uncertain. Residents from Northeast Philadelphia, Montgomery and Bucks Counties packed a high school auditorium on Bustleton Avenue Tuesday night to hear plans to either extend the highway or simply upgrade the existing road network.

The 15-member state Transportation Commission, chaired by Biehler, will vote on the next update of the 12-Year Program at its meeting in August.

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Contact staff writer Jere Downs at 610-313-8128 or jdowns@phillynews.com.