Last Monday night the DRNA (Delaware River Neighborhood Alliance), a membership group of 24 neighborhood associations met with Councilman DiCicco and staff from Stantec Consulting Services, the firm contracted by Councilman DiCicco and Philadelphia City Council to review the casino developers complex traffic management plans. The DRNA requested the meeting in order to gain an understanding of Stantec’s independent review. The message is clear: Traffic mitigation planning is incomplete!
It appears that the SugarHouse plans rely heavily on new temporary ramps yet to be built at the Girard Avenue Interchange. That interchange is scheduled for design modifications and reconstruction (Penn DOT’s GIR) starting in 2008 and potentially extending through 2016. The problem is that until Penn DOT reveals the phasing and staging of construction in sufficient detail to indicate what lanes and what ramps will be active at what times, there is no clear way to plan for handling the 25,000 vehicle trips per day expected to reach SugarHouse. Even with the Penn DOT construction phasing completely developed, the present traffic plan contains some questionable assumptions. During phases of the Girard Interchange construction traffic is expected to bypass the Sugarhouse site, travel another mile north, exit at Allegheny Ave and use a temporary road and surface streets to access the casino. DRNA believes the more likely path is up Columbus Blvd competing with the proposed Foxwoods traffic from the south or through Fishtown neighborhoods and the Girard and Frankford Avenue commercial corridors from the North which would be devastating to those areas. DRNA now insists that further SugarHouse permitting must wait for Penn DOT to move forward enough for accurate casino traffic management plans to be developed and evaluated. Andy Sacksteder, President of River’s Edge Civic Assn voiced his concerns by saying “The more one examines the traffic problems and the proposed mitigation options, the more it becomes clear that they just won’t work at these locations”
Foxwoods has its own problems trying to develop a plan that gets the cars in and out of the site and still provide pedestrian access to the riverfront. These problems are compounded by the near gridlock conditions which already exist at their proposed front doors. Other factors not addressed include the potential for increased traffic from port growth and continued riverfront development projections that are absent from Foxwoods’ minimal provision for background increases in traffic. In a proposed attempt to better balance traffic and reduce the impact at the worst intersection, Foxwoods traffic planners indicate traffic approaching their site from the South. They contend that patrons would
exit at the Walt Whitman Bridge interchange and proceed first seven blocks West away from the destination and then weave through city streets and 17 traffic lights rather than use the interchange just north and three blocks from the site. Stantec questions this approach and the DRNA feels that the real path will result in severe traffic stoppages at intersections like Columbus Blvd and Reed Street.
Stantec outlined another design performance requirement for Columbus Blvd that seems un-addressed: its second function as an emergency route if I-95 is closed. DRNA believes that the existing traffic combined with new casino patron traffic will so completely load the street that no capacity for I-95 loads during an emergency remains. In addition; it was revealed that Foxwoods is studying traffic impacts only for Phase I instead of its proposed 3 phase project. The Foxwoods traffic plans stop with the development impacts of the 3000 machine slot parlor leaving the community questioning if there is any solution when 5000 slots are in place at the current proposed location. Queen Village resident Jeff Rush said that “considering the compromise the citizens of Philadelphia are being asked to make by bringing Foxwoods casino impacts to the proposed location, the financial shortfall of revenues from anything less that the full build out would appear to make Foxwoods now an undesirable project at that location.” DRNA takes the clear position that no approvals for Foxwoods should ever even be considered before a plan for handling the traffic effects of the full development can be presented.
The above issues are just a few of the monumental problems facing the DRNA and the City of Philadelphia from badly selected casino sites. The present waterfront sites don’t work. Alternate locations must be selected now.
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