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PennDot hopes the 25-member committee will, in the next six to nine months, provide a plan to redesign the highway

For the second time, a community group is being formed to look for ways to alleviate traffic along Route 41 in Southern Chester County, PennDot officials said yesterday.

The agency has been studying the busy two-lane highway for more than a decade and said the new, 25-member committee would have six to nine months to reach a consensus on how to redesign the road.

Andrew L. Warren, the agency's district administrator, said he hopes to break an impasse that derailed a previous working group in September. That group, called the Citizens Advisory Committee, met for nearly four years starting in 2000 but bogged down in September, when it came to judging specific road proposals.

"It became very apparent that there was so much entrenchment from various aspects of the community that we needed to step back and come at it from a different angle," he said. "The idea, when it's all said and done, is that the highway will have been designed, created and accepted by the communities along the corridor."

Warren said the new group is composed of business leaders, government officials and interested residents. The first meeting is scheduled for next week.

Business groups have campaigned for a four-lane expressway, while a local citizens group has pressed for a two-lane alternative. The highway, also known as the Gap-Newport Pike, connects Lancaster County with the Delaware River near Wilmington and is one of the region's busier truck routes.

S.A.V.E. 41, (Safety, Agriculture, Villages, Environment) the citizens group pressing for the two-lane alternative, said it welcomed the new working group, while an official at the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry decried it, saying it has undone several years of work.

Warren said there was no timetable for a draft environmental impact statement, the detailed evaluation required of all federally funded highway construction.

"I'm going to go into this process cautiously optimistic," said Robert F. Powelson, the chamber's president and a member of the new group. "I think that I've got a very bitter taste in my mouth in how this has been handled."

He said the previous working group concluded that S.A.V.E.'s proposals did not work and that the group is playing politics with the highway.

Louis Kaplan, S.A.V.E.'s chairman, said his organization prefers two lanes with roundabouts because they would be a stronger way to keep development in check. He also said there were errors in the model that found roundabouts did not work.

"The one thing I think everyone in the community can agree on is they want a safe roadway," Kaplan said. "Where there is divergence is whether making it bigger, wider, faster is a good alternative. We're hoping those kinds of conversations occur."

ONLINE EXTRA Find more information about Route 41 on the Web via go.philly.com/pike.