A traffic assessment report, submitted to the West Chester Regional Planning Commission at a public meeting last Tuesday, recommended not building the proposed university access road through West Chester University?s Gordon Natural Area.The road had been proposed as one option to address local concerns about increased traffic on Rosedale Avenue. Instead of the university access road, which would have run between New Street and High Street through the Gordon Natural Area, the report recommends expanding three interchanges on Rosedale Avenue to include right and left turning lanes.
Mark Mixner, Vice President of WCU, said that the university would only consider building an access road through the Gordon Natural Area if it fulfilled the following conditions: addressed a compelling need, met that need, there were no other viable alternatives and there was a regional consensus. “The university is aware of the value of the Gordon Area,” Mixner said. “At the same time, we feel we have to be a partner in addressing regional issues.”
The WCU Earth Group issued a statement about the meeting and said, “We are very pleased with how Tuesday?s meeting went and will continue to take whatever actions are necessary to prevent the building of a road through the Gordon Natural Area. Along with the Earth Group, more than 60 people came to the meeting to show support for the preservation of the area, including faculty and students of WCU, students and teachers from the Ecology Club at Henderson High School and Friends of the Gordon Natural Area, a group of concerned local residents.
Although a one-lane road used for university vehicles and maintenance facilities currently runs through the Gordon Natural Area, the proposed building of a public access road through the area has sparked recent controversy. Composed of 155 acres of undisturbed woodland on the WCU campus, the area is used primarily for environmental studies programs. Proponents of preserving the area say that building a road would disturb the continuous forest canopy that is crucial to maintain the woodland ecosystem. Laura Dossantos, a WCU student, said, “It?s so important to have hands-on learning and without the Gordon Area, there aren?t as many places we can do that.”
After the report was presented, the meeting was open to public comments.
Dr. Harry Tiebout, a WCU professor and faculty administrator of the Gordon Natural Area, asked the creators of the report to clarify their position on the university access road.
Although the report did not recommend building the road, it stated that if such a road were built, the least invasive approach would be a one-lane road. Tiebout said that if this position was not removed from the final report, the 60 people who had come to the meeting in support of the Gordon Natural Area would list reasons to preserve the area for the remainder of the evening. In response, the report?s creators said they would remove this section from the report and only recommend not building the road.
John Theilacker, associate director of the Brandywine Conservancy, an environmental management center that worked in conjunction with Potential new road may disturb environment Law makes check clearing instanteous other agencies to evaluate local traffic patterns, said, “The disadvantages simply outweighed any advantages of a public university access road.”
He characterized the Gordon Natural Area as “locally significant” and said that the environmental, educational and recreational value of the area would be destroyed with the building of either a one or two lane road.
However, the report recommendation to expand the Rosedale Avenue corridor to accomodate the increasing demands of local traffic will not be easy. According to Chris Williams, a representative from McMahon Associates, Inc., another agency involved in drafting the report, expanding three crucial interchanges is feasible but far more difficult than building the access road.
The report recommends expanding the interchanges at New, Matlack and High Streets.
Expanding these three interchanges will involve widening both sides of the road significantly, which will affect street parking and sidewalk space, as well as building additional pedestrian facilities. Williams predicts that the WCU sign at High Street and Rosedale Avenue would also have to be removed. Both Williams and Theilacker said an additional study and detailed design plan in conjunction with PennDOT and local developers would be necessary to implement the expansion of these interchanges.
Although he stressed the difficulties of this recommendation, Williams said, “We believe that through careful design these can be mitigated.”
The purpose of the report was to look at West Chester development projections for the next 20 years and evaluate the changes that need to be made to accommodate increased traffic demands. Aside from the highly controversial university access road, the report also looked at the Rt. 202 and Rt. 926 interchange, described as the most problematic interchange in the area, the possibility of a Rt. 322 bypass, and the issue of neighborhood cut-through traffic.
After soliciting public opinion at last Tuesday?s meeting, the report will be finalized and submitted for review by West Chester Regional Planning Commission Task Force. If the recommendations are accepted, the commission will begin to take action to address local traffic needs in December.