by KATIE WORRALL

After a several-year hiatus, the Philadelphia Streets Department’s project to work on East Bell’s Mill Road between Germantown and Stenton avenues has come up again.

In a series of meetings in the late 1990s,the city, an engineering firm and the Bell’s Mill Road Design Committee discussed the city’s plans to re-do the narrow-winding road. Neighbors saw little reason to change the road   to make it safer.

Nothing came of the project at the time because the surveys done were so inaccurate and ineffective that it was impossible for the consultant, KCI  Technologies, to complete a design, according to Heidi Shusterman, a landscape architect who lives on the street.

Fast forward to the CHCA’s Land Use Planning & Zoning Committee meeting on November 6. Neighbors crowded the Chestnut Hill Senior Center to discuss their thoughts about a project in which Joseph R.  Syrnick, the city’s chief engineer and surveyor, wrote to CHCA president Maxine M. Dornemann on October 8 to say that the city   is now under contract with KCI Technologies to complete the project and is prepared to present plans to the community. Syrnick said in the letter that the reason for the delay involved funding and the bureaucratic funding process.

Although no city representatives were present at the November 6 LUPZ meeting, neighbors, led by Janice Manzi presented   their concerns about a project that committee co-chair Ned Mitinger referred to as the city ”re-routing” of East Bell’s Mill Rd.”

Manzi told the LUPZC last week that the city wants to make East Bell’s Mill Road an arterial route from the City to Montgomery County, with sidewalks and bike paths. Manzi said that the road had fragile walls, trees that are 20 inches in diameter and houses within eight or 10 feet of the roadway.

Carolyn van Sciver, a neighbor, said that the city wants to use Bell’s Mill Road as a thruway, but that the traffic has no where to go as it approaches a traffic jam at Stenton Avenue.

Bob Shusterman requested that the community members have information from the city and the consultants another meeting takes place. He said that there had been discrepancies on the previous plan that were never corrected, such as trees in the right-of-way and an eight-foot discrepancy between the location of his house and the roadway.

In a position paper on the “Future of East Bell’s Mill Road, Manzi wrote that “Each time the [Streets} Department presents plans, it has been substantial opposition from   everyone concerned: the neighbors, the CHCA, the Chestnut Hill Business Association, the Chestnut Hill Historical Society and the Morris Arboretum, to name a few. They oppose the Streets Department plan for aesthetic, economic, ecological, safety and historic reasons. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find any reason to do the work except to help Montgomery County commuters drive faster between the traffic light at Germantown Avenue and the stop sign .4 mile away at Stenton Avenue.”

Manzi writes that according to the National Task Force for Historic Roads, Bell’s Mill Road is classified as both an aesthetic route and a cultural route; it is an aesthetic   route because it is “park road…never intended as a fastest or quickest route.”  Manzi quotes the task force as saying that a cultural routes” represents roads that evolved through necessity or tradition.”

Manzi questions why the city would want to spend millions of dollars on a  road way that  is four-tenths of a mile long. She points out that there are no sidewalks on West Bell’s Mill Road or Stenton Avenue. Ecological reasons against improvement, according to Manzi, are the fact that the road lies within the Wissahickon Watershed.

Bob Fogel, a new resident of the street who lived on Wissahickon Avenue when that road was redone, recommended involving the district city councilperson on negotiations with the city. This recommendation was also made by LUPZ John Haak, a city employee who said that it is important to have concrete examples of what the city is doing in other neighborhoods.

Tom Branigan, deputy engineering manager for the streets department, told the Local on Monday that the project is being done to solve drainage problems, to improve the guard rail near the stream and improve the site line. He said the road would not be widened because the city has enough right-of-way to make improvements with minimum impact on properties. A sidewalk would be built on one side of the road to meet Americans with Disabilities Act standards and to provide access to everyone.

Branigan said that the city wants to meet with the community so that the community members can help with the design and so that there would be as much interaction as possible.

The LUPZ requested CHCA executive director Marie Lachat to write to the Streets Department with a list of specific questions about the project.