TRUTH

More documents

Recommendations

Info

COURTESY OF THE BRANDYWINE CONSERVANCYing two lanes into four—plus turn lanes and high-speed limitedaccesslanes. Now, as PennDOT’s environmental process moves forward,S.A.V.E. will be judged by what it helps to create through itscontinued advocacy for a two-lane alternative to widening Route 41.The transportation department’s work to encourage townshipswithin the corridor to replace traffic signals with roundabouts—anoption long advocated by S.A.V.E. as a mechanism to enhance safetyand cure some of the local congestion without building biggerand wider—is a step in the right direction.Newbold, an aquatic scientist who studies southern ChesterCounty’s watersheds, moved there in 1983, before the suburbansprawl really hit. Even then, he says, he would shake his head whilewaiting to cross Route 41: “Even in the 1980s, I would think,‘Hmm, this is a pretty busy road; I hope they never turn it into asuperhighway.’” But that was the plan.“We’ve spent more than $1.2 million in the last 10 years. Isn’tthat amazing? That’s a lot of money to spend on battling your owngovernment,” says Dee Durham ’83, executive director of S.A.V.E.since 2002 and the organization’s only paid staff member. “Thestate was doing what they’d always done. They thought they weredoing the right thing. How could a bunch of lay people know betterthan engineers?”“The difference,” Durham says, “is that the lay people love theircommunity and know what they want it to be.”But where S.A.V.E.’s leaders saw a need for traffic-calmingdevices and limitations on trucks, the state wanted to double theroad’s capacity. Originally, Durham and Newbold say, their argumentsfaced great resistance, and in 2001, their two-lane alternative—whichalso featured a two-lane bypass around Avondale—was flatly rejected. “They shut the door on us at that point,” Newboldsays.However, with the election of Democratic Governor Ed Rendellin 2002—and the looming reality of a state budget crunch thatmade building new highways less feasible—S.A.V.E. pushed thedoor back open. In a protracted game of high-stakes Ping-Pong,competing consultants produced studies alternately supportingS.A.V.E.’s two-lane proposal and rebutting it. In 2005, withPennDOT finally embracing the concept of “context-sensitivedesign,” S.A.V.E. and other stakeholders from local government,the business community, and industry, met with the agency monthlyto find a solution to the safety and congestion problems onRoute 41.“PennDOT was looking at how to do things differently,” saysMary Raulerson, the agency’s project manager for Route 41. “Wewanted a compromise alternative that everyone could live with.”But, as Raulerson says, other than the stipulation of a need to makesafety improvements at existing intersections, no clear compromisearose from the meetings.Without a clear community mandate, PennDOT is now workingwith the Federal Highway Administration to formulate a list ofappropriate capacity-building initiatives that will undergo environmentalstudy. The options will then be presented in public hearingsand only after assessing the feedback will the agency determine the“preferred alternative.” The four-lane option isn’t off the table,Raulerson cautions, and it likely will be studied alongside otheralternatives. But, she adds tellingly, “We don’t believe that themunicipalities want four lanes throughout the whole corridor.”Durham says roundabouts will reduce existing congestion, citingfederal data showing that roundabouts increase traffic capacityby 30 to 50 percent, in addition to reducing injury crashes by 76percent, with up to a 90 percent reduction in fatalities. By routingtraffic around a one-way circular intersection, cars can continue filteringthrough a yield rather than being forced to stop, preventingback-ups. “The U.K. model is ‘Wide nodes, narrow roads,’ in otherwords, fix the congestion where it occurs—at the intersections.There’s no need to widen the whole roadway,” Durham says.Not everyone agrees with S.A.V.E.’s agenda. “The issue is one ofunder-capacity and significant congestion,” says Jack Weber, chairof the Southern Chester County Organization on Transportation,which advocates for a bigger bypass around Avondale, furtherremoved from the town, than the one that S.A.V.E. has proposed.Weber refutes the argument that roundabouts will cure congestionand believes that, although expansion is not a foregone conclusion,the state should purchase right-of-way now to prepare for possiblefuture construction. “We respect S.A.V.E’s opinion but don’t necessarilythink it’s what’s best for the county,” says Weber.32 : swarthmore college bulletin
KEARY LARSON/WWW.SOMETHINGINTHESKY.COMThey explain optimisticallythat this is the directionof progress—a progressthat begets preservation.Opposite: New housing developmentsare springing up along the Route 41corridor in Chester County, Pa., builton some of the state’s best—and mostbeautiful—farmland.Above: Improving traffic flow throughthe use of roundabouts is an alternativeto increasing a highway’s capacity.Not all townships in Chester County want a roundabout. Butalthough the Britain-based roundabout movement was slow incoming to Pennsylvania, Durham and Newbold say an increasingnumber of municipalities are now embracing the roundabout concept.The first roundabout in southern Chester County opened inAugust 2005 on Pa. Route 82 near Unionville. It was the secondroundabout to be constructed in the state and is a model for futureconstruction, say Durham and Newbold. They explain optimisticallythat this is the direction of progress—a progress that begetspreservation.When asked whether they think they’ve fully escaped the threatof Route 41 becoming a superhighway, Newbold and Durham lookat one another before answering. “We think so,” Newbold saysslowly, with the caution of a veteran community activist.“There’s change happening across the country,” says Durham,who rode horses in Chester County as a child and previouslyworked in historic preservation. “You can’t keep building bigger,wider roads to ‘solve congestion.’”“We’re into an era—I hope—when we don’t build dams and wedon’t build nuclear power plants and we don’t build highways,”says Newbold. “We now know there are better ways.” TElizabeth Redden writes for InsideHigherEd.com in Washington, D.C.march 2007 : 33
Page 1: TRUTHintranslation
Page 4 and 5: parlor talkIcast my first president
Page 6 and 7: collectionThe Meaning of Swarthmore
Page 8 and 9: collectionDinnerwith theNobel Laure
Page 10 and 11: collectionJoie deGlassUnder the tut
Page 12 and 13: collectionKYLE LEACHRecords Fall As
Page 14 and 15: collectionCOLLEGE COMMITSTO PURCHAS
Page 16 and 17: HOMEPASCALE ROUZIESAlthough many wi
Page 18 and 19: SOUL HOMEDiane Levine Umemoto ’65
Page 20 and 21: LIMBOHannah Brown ’84: Moshav Bei
Page 22 and 23: How Swarthmore College influencedth
Page 24 and 25: 1962: James Meredith becomes the fi
Page 26 and 27: REBECCA WHARTON
Page 28 and 29: get so far wrong as to attract thei
Page 30 and 31: to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps
Page 32 and 33: JIM GRAHAMDenis Newbold ’71 (left
Page 36 and 37: campus view34 : swarthmore college
Page 38 and 39: 8By Dana Mackenzie ’79A Sin8ularC
Page 40 and 41: ackground music,” says Goresky.
Page 42 and 43: connectionsrecent...Delhi, IndiaThe
Page 44 and 45: class notesPostcardsSculptor Philli
Page 46 and 47: Dance Group, the first dance-theate
Page 48 and 49: profileCare, Comfort, ConvenienceBJ
Page 50 and 51: in my lifeOrcas & IceTHE WORLD IS A
Page 52 and 53: profileCompassion in BusinessGABRIE
Page 54 and 55: ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

TRUTH

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?