On Wednesday, February 16, 2005, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Transportation, Allen Biehler held a series of meetings in Harrisburg to announce PennDOT’s findings of a supplemental study that was stimulated by an alternative plan submitted by the Neighbors for Bucks County Preservation and by intense lobbying by opponents to the expressway. The results of PennDOT’s study shocked many expressway proponents but only confirmed what opponents have been saying for years: that the proposed expressway would not have relieved congestion along the 202 corridor and would have increased development and traffic volumes in the region.

Secretary Biehler was extremely clear on two points:

1.) The expressway, as approved, would not have had a significant impact on congestion;

2.) There are no funds to build the expressway even if it did all that was promised to the public.

In place of the four-lane expressway, PennDOT is proposing a two-lane parkway that would utilize the right-of-way obtained by the expressway and approximately $40 million in improvements along the existing 202 corridor. The revised plan was met with cautious optimism from both sides of the expressway controversy.

The information provided below is derived from the meeting with the Secretary of Transportation and the short handout provided by PennDOT. As such, it should be recognized that no one currently has the details necessary to intelligently say aye or nay to the concept.

1. Three meetings were held concerning 202. The first involved legislators from the region, which was followed by separate meetings with pro-expressway municipalities and those opposed to the expressway.

2. Secretary of Transportation, Allen Biehler and Tim Jackson, of Gladding/Jackson, the firm commissioned by PennDOT to restudy 202, were the primary speakers. Both asserted that there were insufficient funds for the project and that the project goals of congestion relief would not be realized even if the project were constructed.
3. It was acknowledged that the new study was based on the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) traffic counts and projections, as was the original study. Interestingly, the conclusions drawn from the two studies are quite different. This raises the very important question of who knew what and when.

Why is this important? Because $84 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on a project that was never going to work as claimed. Under other circumstances, perhaps those involved in the project could claim that new information and technologies resulted in the differing conclusions. However, in this instance, Gladding/Jackson’s findings mirror those of Buckingham, which sent up the red flag as early as 1995.

How is it possible that several municipal officials were able to correctly identify the fatal flaws with the expressway proposal and swarms of transportation professionals were not? Even worse, Buckingham officials were extremely open about the problems that they identified and provided extensive documentation as to the cause and impact of the project deficiencies that were totally ignored and/or discounted. How did this happen? There appear to be only two potential answers and it will be very interesting to find out which one is correct:

A. Incompetence on the part of PennDOT, DVRPC, FHWA and the engineering firms assigned to the expressway project.

B. Manipulation of the process for some purpose other than the stated project goal.

To be blunt, if #2 is the correct answer, then one or more people knew that the project would not work as promised and allowed $84 million of our money to be wasted. We cannot imagine that anyone in a corporate setting would be allowed to get away with wasting $84 million on a project doomed to failure and retain their position. We see no reason why the same standards should not apply to government officials as well.

Again, the question comes down to who knew what when? If they didn’t know at all, that is just as bad!

4. As predicted in 1996 by Buckingham, Tim Jackson confirmed that building the expressway would increase the amount of travel in the 202 corridor by approximately 33%. To those who continue to support the expressway, the following question remains open and unanswered… how do you hope to reduce congestion by significantly increasing traffic?
5. As previously predicted, PennDOT confirmed that the vast majority of the traffic on 202 was local in nature. This is a direct contradiction to claims made by expressway proponents who have, for years, placed the blame for their congestion on non-resident pass through trips. According to the report, 202 traffic is comprised of:

7% regional / through trips
37% begin or end in the study area
56% are completely local, beginning AND ending in the study area
6. The parkway plan includes 12 at-grade intersections. The expressway called for only three elevated interchanges. By increasing the number of entry and exit points, the parkway provides for far greater mobility within the corridor.
7. The parkway would be built following the contours of the land. This would help minimize the environmental impact and make it very difficult (though not impossible) to replace the two- lane parkway with a four-lane expressway in the future.
8. The construction techniques required by the two road types are very different. Although building a two-lane road that follows the contours does not totally preclude expanding it to an expressway in the future, it is very likely that the parkway would have to be removed to do so. That cost, combined with the need to add bridges and interchanges plus resident anger at having their newly acquired local travel routes reduced once again, make future expansion unlikely. That said, both Buckingham and Solebury recognize the potential for expansion and it is expected that they will make reducing that possibility a high priority in the negotiations.
9. Eugene McGill, a State Representative from Montgomery County has been crowing that the Smart Mobility plan was shown to be ineffective. That is not correct. We can expect to see major components of the plan in the final solution including roundabouts, improvements to existing 202, and alternate routes. Rather than gloating, Mr. McGill would have been better served thanking those who worked so hard on Smart Mobility for their efforts to improve the regional transportation. We don’t take Mr. McGill too seriously and would remind readers that he is the legislator who recently referred to residents of Buckingham and Solebury as “ignorant” in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
10. Secretary Biehler stressed that access to the new parkway would be limited and that driveways (commercial and residential) would not be allowed. This is a good first step but the affected municipalities must implement proper land use planning as well. If the new road is allowed to be developed along the same lines as 202 or 309 in Chalfont, New Britain and Montgomeryville have been, then the new road will fail and $200 million dollars will have been wasted. There will be a great deal of pressure to allow intense development along the new road and it is the responsibility of the community to make sure that their local governments do not sell out or cave-in to the developers who are certain to be banging on the door.
11. The approved expressway plan did not include any funding for improvements along the existing 202 corridor. The parkway concept does. This is a major change and one that is welcome due to the significant benefit that will be realized immediately. Buckingham and Solebury both suggested to the Secretary that these improvements be begun as soon as possible and not be delayed by the planning process that must accompany the parkway.
12. The expressway proposal was originally projected to cost $225 million. It is currently estimated at over $460 million – a 100% plus increase. The cause of this increase was not delays caused by Buckingham and Solebury but rather the initial estimate was grossly inaccurate. In point of fact, the opposition to the expressway never tried to and did not delay the project by even a minute until last spring. At that point, PennDOT, at the request of multiple municipalities agreed to explore other alternatives and this was the only period of time that the project was on hold in ANY manner. That process took approximately 10 months and we doubt that anyone can make an intelligent case for the cost of the project increasing by $235 million in that short timeframe.
13. Buckingham and Solebury have requested that Demand Reduction strategies be considered inclusive of park and ride lots, corporate jitneys and other methods to reduce the number of cars on our roads. PennDOT officials responded favorably and we are hopeful that opportunities to reduce the number of vehicles will be seriously evaluated.
14. The parkway will have a limited impact on the congestion on existing 202 as the vast majority of that traffic is local and the zoning along the route encourages ever-increasing automobile usage.
15. Traffic volumes on existing 202 are down but congestion has increased. There are very simple reasons why that is occurring and will continue to occur. All communities in the region need to take a very hard look at their zoning and make fundamental decisions about what they want their communities to be like in the future. This cannot be a fantasy exercise because with each decision comes ramifications and those ramifications are very real.

For example, is anyone really surprised that PA 611 in Doylestown and Warrington has become a traffic nightmare? One look at the retail construction tells you why it is happening. We are not saying that the type of development that the community has chosen to allow is necessarily bad, merely that by choosing that form of development certain secondary impacts are assured to occur. If you are going to encourage development forms that require auto access for success (i.e. retail), don’t be surprised when you get cars.