The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 432

Sunday, March 20, 1988 The Philadelphia Inquirer 45-06 A new bypass is sought straight away nS I I IP If' rt8f ffNst pwi pmm I I 3 UJ Ki I EAGLE Jf TAVERN ,0 jWsKrr ti rx By Wendy Walker Special to The Inquirer The proposed Exton bypass gets all the attention. But there's another bypass in the works, around the Eagle section of Upper Uwchlan Township. Route 100 is two lanes wide, with narrow shoulders, as it runs through the village, which means that traffic stacks up behind motorists trying to make left turns off the highway onto Byers and Little Con-estoga Roads. Residents complain that cars often back up all the way through the village during rush hours and on summer weekends, when motorists take Park Road to Marsh Creek State Park. And the situation is expected to worsen: About 700 houses are proposed for the Park Road area alone, and most of that traffic will flow onto Route 100 in the middle of the village.

"We need an alternative" was how Walter Styer, chairman of the Board of Supervisors and a lifelong township resident, put it recently. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation suggested adding left-turn lanes to Route 100. But the supervisors argued that such widening would mean tearing down several of Eagle's historic buildings, which skirt the road. So the supervisors and their engineer, Garfield Smith, have sketched out a mile-long, two-lane bypass to the east of the village that they hope will ease traffic jams and preserve the village's heritage, which includes the 1727 Eagle Tavern. The board first plotted the route on paper, then flew over it in a helicopter provided by Kimberton developer H.

Phillip Davies. The proposed bypass would begin on Route 100 just north of East Township Line Road, between Wolf-ington Body Co. Inc. and American Truck Sales Inc. It would run through the Senn brothers' proposed Eagle Industrial Park, where graphite was mined in the early 1900s, and would cross Byers Road east of the Masonic Hall and Eagle Farms Road.

It would continue north through the Dietrich farm, well to the east of the township building and the Pickering Valley School, and would rejoin Route 100 at a point to be determined when the farm now cornfields is developed. Because the bypass is in such a preliminary stage, the supervisors do not have even a ballpark estimate on how much the road would cost. But they already have mapped out who would pay for it: developers. "No doubt about it, it's going to cost some bucks. But if we can get the developers to put it in, isn't that the name of the game?" asked Styer, who owns a trucking firm on Route 100 just north of Eagle.

As an incentive for developers who agree to put the road where the township wants it, he said, the supervisors may permit increased density on the affected tracts. Financial considerations affected the placement of the road, Styer said: The fewer properties it runs across, the fewer landowners the township will have to negotiate with. The board also hoped that devel opers of large properties in north' At one of the congestion-prone areas in the Eagle section, northbound traffic on Route 100 passes Special to Tha Inquirer SCOTT ROWAN Eagle Tavern near Byers Road. Upper Uwchlan's supervisors and engineer, facing growing traffic problems along Route 100 in Eagle, are starting to make plans for a stretch of road around the historic section. And they want developers to pay for it.

NyC WEST VINCENT If) xAP' UPPER UWCHLAN IeagleX ss' 4l State A 1 iLy uwchlan TWP- CHESTER COUNTY ern Upper Uwchlan notably Bernard Hankin Builders of Exton and Shared Medical Systems of Malvern would help to foot the bill for the road, which also might include a spur running south to East Township Line Road. Styer said he thought the developers should contribute because the bypass would made it easier for motorists from those tracts to reach Route 100, instead of taking the narrow East Township Line Another spur eventually may connect Park Road directly to the bypass, allowing Park Road traffic to avoid the village. Styer acknowledged that "we've had a lot of doubting Thomases" about whether the project will ever be built and if it is whether it will work. PennDOT, for one, told the township last fall that the bypass simply wasn't necessary. But Styer said PennDOT responded that way because "they thought we were trying to get state money to do it." Sheldon Krocker, chairman of the township Planning Commission, agreed that the bypass was "the only viable alternative to the destruction of the downtown." But he wondered whether truckers and other motorists would actually use the bypass.

Styer said the board had not worked out how traffic would be routed at the two junctions with Route 100 or whether traffic lights or stop signs would be installed. But, he said, the supervisors believe they have to take some action now, before the traffic situation worsens. "It might not happen for five years, but our board really feels that they want to see it," he said. "What else are you going to do?" The Philadelphia Inquirer B.F. BINIK.