The Friends of Glen Providence Park presented its vision, principles and key elements for the 3rd Street Project at Thursday's Media Borough Council meeting.

The group's vision is public safety, minimal environmental impact and community enjoyment.

Borough resident Linda Healy, a member of the Friends group, said this vision is a shared vision of the community shown by both local political parties, project stakeholders and in public opinion surveys.

In May, council voted 5-2 in favor of notifying the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that the direction of the project be to replace the existing dam with another dam structure that has both a vehicular and pedestrian component.

Robin Lasersohn, a borough resident and member of the Friends group, offered five elements that the group believes need to be a priority in the design of the project. (See attached PDF).

• One automotive vehicle lane
• One-way automotive traffic from Upper Providence into Media (with two-way availability for emergency vehicles)
• Borough-managed traffic control, such as a gate or bollard across the roadway
• Attractive pedestrian pathway
• Use of materials that would complement a historic park

Lasersohn said the group strongly advocates that the design would only include one vehicle lane.

"The narrower the structure is, the less damage that will be done to that end of the park," Lasersohn said.

She said the group is also working with a landscape architect on a detailed design based on these same elements and they hope to present it to council and the community at the September workshop meeting.

Borough resident and Friends group member Terry Rumsey said the group believes that public opinion has also supported this same vision.

Rumsey said the public has shown its support for this vision through a petition, town meetings held by the project's Citizen Advisory Committee, special borough council meetings and the CAC survey. 

"The clear, favored preference through that survey was for dam removal and pedestrian-bicycle only traffic, again specifying that there would be emergency vehicle access," Rumsey said. "That was by far and away the most popular option."

However, many borough residents either did not receive or respond to the CAC survey. About 3,800 surveys were mailed to renters, property owners and business owners and only 651 were returned by the March deadline, according to Rumsey.

But, the 651 respondents or 17.6 percent is the, "most extensive collection of public opinion data on any issue in the history of the borough," according to the Friends of Glen Providence Park information sheet. (See attached PDF).

"We think that the people of Media have consistently, as a majority, expressed the most minimal environmental damage to Glen Providence Park, restricting automobile traffic and emphasizing and prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle traffic and ensuring access for emergency vehicles," Rumsey said.

Borough Council did not formally respond to the Friends of Glen Providence Park representatives however after being asked by borough resident Paul Indorf about the progress of the project, Council President Brian Hall said he expects and hopes to have more information to give to the project's design professionals in September.

At council's Aug. 2 workshop meeting there was much discussion over the width of the roadway and whether it be open to one- or two-way traffic.

One council idea at that workshop meeting was to make the roadway as wide as two lanes, but only use one lane for vehicles, leaving the other for pedestrians and bicycles. Therefore having the option of making the roadway open to two-lanes of traffic, years down the line, if needed.

No formal decisions were made at the workshop meeting but council asked the borough engineer to investigate an appropriate width of the roadway.

Read more from that workshop meeting here on the Delaware County Daily Times.

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