We already have (and promote) a walkable community. However, the traffic volumes on Old York Road stand to erode our downtown’s last vestiges of charm. Because no one wants to walk on Old York, no business that relies upon foot traffic will establish themselves there. It will all become about setbacks and allowances for parking.
At a late November city council meeting, local officials voted 4-1 to impose a six-month “emergency” moratorium on car-related retail throughout Columbia Heights. The breather would give planners a chance to study potential zoning changes that offer more control over the situation—with the hope of turning at least the main part of town into a place that’s much more friendly to pedestrians.
We have made our case. Either the citizens of Jenkintown will accept and embrace the concept of public responsibility for public assets, or it will continue to allow the status quo to molder on and degrade our walkable environment.
The facts are these:
The public financing of roads but not of sidewalks amounts to a subsidy for automobile usage. In an age of climate change and an obesity epidemic, it shows a misguided priority for machines over man.
The borough claims facetiously that it cannot afford to take on this responsibility. Actually, it has the money, but it chooses to spend it elsewhere, and often on things where it should not. (For instance, we have more police cars per capita than New York City.)
The borough does not choose to lead the way. It can if it wants, but an element on the Council sees no reason to change its ways or to even discuss it. Such attitudes speaks not only of ignorance, but it leads to dangerous long-term consequences for the viability of the community.
The current sidewalk policy has resulted in an unsightly hodge-podge of substandard construction that will degrade far faster and cost more than a unified, single-payer approach. The process has proven arbitrary and subject to political manipulation. In other words, it helps to know someone.
The current process currently does not accommodate hardship. You either pay up or you will go to court, face a fine, and ultimately find a lien slapped on your house. The borough shows no interest whatsoever in working with families that for reasons beyond their control cannot afford to maintain what is public space.
This situation will not change without public pressure. I have done my best to enlist the help of my neighbors, some of whom have urged me to draft a petition to get this changed. In fact, most of the people I’ve spoken with about this issue tend to agree with me, but what they will do to further this remains an open question. I would happily help in this effort, but I cannot and should not do it by myself.
I stand ready to press on, but I will need your help. If you would like to meet to discuss what more we can do, let me know. Velvet Sky makes for a perfect meeting spot, and its one of those places that I’ll miss when my family and I can finally move away — which we will if this borough — and commonwealth — continues its oppressive policies against working class homeowners.
The Jenkintown 2035 Visioning Workshop turned out an impressive attendance last Thursday night, which included several Borough Council members, Mayor Ed Foley, and Jenkintown Borough Manager George Locke. The overall group seemed to represent a cross-section of Jenkintown society that didn’t have to commute long distances to and from work.
For anyone who’s never attended these exercises, think of it as a big brainstorming session. Organizers distribute the attendees into groups of four to eight seated at their own tables with a leader who takes notes and guides the discussion. The county officials running the show assemble all the notes, listen to all the visions, and then return to Norristown to process it all into a coherent plan.
At the end of workshop, hopefully everyone leaves feeling like they’ve contributed to their community. Only time — twenty years, to be exact — will tell. Whether or not that plan sits on the shelf and collects dust for the next twenty years depends on the priorities of our representatives, political opportunities, and fate.
Click on the plan to download.
For anyone who thinks that these plans amount to nothing, keep in mind that the 1962 plan for Jenkintown called for the removal of Old York Road’s on-street parking in order to make it a four lane “modern” highway. Be careful what you wish for.
Here it is in black and white. Be careful what you wish for.
Speaking of which, “fixing” Old York Road found support across the room. How people want to see that happen is another matter. We have said all along that making Old York Road a desirable place to walk requires not only slowing down the traffic, but also providing a safe, effective pedestrian buffer. The absolute best way to do that is to restore parallel parking on both sides of the street.
The extra parking this provides comes as an added bonus with minimal impact to the district’s current developed assets. In other words, no more demolitions and no more eminent domain seizures. People, however, have a hard time understanding the simplicity of this solution, mostly because they fear a line of traffic bottlenecked for five miles in either direction. They see current traffic and falsely assume all of it would still jam through Jenkintown.
The workshop focused on three areas: Land use, open space and parks, and transportation. Open space and parks seems hardly germain to any discussion about Jenkintown’s future since it has so little available. To provide more open space, the town would have to either accept it as a gift or to seize it via eminent domain. The former is unlikely, and the latter is unacceptable. And yes, someone suggested the latter.
We live close enough to some excellent parks in other communities. Unfortunately, we can’t use best of them, Alverthorpe Park. We support any effort to gain access for Jenkintown residents as well — within reason.
Regarding the other two:
Land Use
Jenkintown has next to no land available for development. We do, however, have a very good mix of residential and commercial. We are a classic traditional community, developed well before the post-war, sprawl-making madness that destroyed most of the rest of the region. Old York Road remains the elephant in this room. Unless the state and county can address the walkability issues of downtown, the development pressures will favor anti-pedestrian policies.
Because people cannot park on the street itself, developers will push for their own parking, often through expansive setbacks that will further decay the pedestrian experience. Looking north along the road around IHOP shows a potential future for the rest of the district. Little buildings — big parking lots. I don’t think anyone at the workshop wanted this. If the Borough does not have design standards that prevent it, I don’t know what will stop it, especially when tax receipts are involved.
Transportation
Besides its highly rated school system, Jenkintown lays claim to the busiest suburban train station on the SEPTA system. Aside from its rather inconvenient location downhill a half mile away from the business distict, it makes Jenkintown one of the best connected locations in the region. About the only thing missing from the transporation equation is more intersecting bus routes and better biking corridors.
Despite the volume of ridership that originates at Jenkintown-Wyncote, SEPTA runs only a single intersecting bus line, #77. This compels too many suburban riders to drive into the area and park on the street, something SEPTA wants to address with a new parking garage and station that hopefully it will never build. We would like to see SEPTA develop new bus routes, but given the topography and the lack of space for larger buses, this may have to wait until gasoline hits six dollars per gallon.
As expected, someone did suggest a shuttle to take passengers from the station to our downtown. Here’s the problem with shuttles: No one rides them. They only work where driving to your destination becomes impossible. That only happens in successful, densely packed, walkable districts, which we don’t have.
Bicyclists face another challenge. We have narrow roads, making bike lanes impractical. Also, because Jenkintown and its skinny streets sits on top of a hill, only the youngest and fittest of our residents will risk their lives to pedal anywhere.
I made the suggestion that SEPTA include a bike trail within its right-of-way, at least from Jenkintown all the way to Beth Ayres, where it could connect to the brand new Pennypack Trail. An extension south at least to Old York Road in Cheltenham would might present more opportunities for safe bike commuting. In most places, the right of way provides for plenty of space for a bike path.
Finally, some readers have wondered how all this concern for Old York Road relates to our sidewalk policy. The prideful mention of Jenkintown as a “walkable community” probably came up at least a few dozen times. Obviously, most residents place great value on this characteristic. It takes but a tiny leap to connect our embrace of our walkability as a community asset with making it a community responsibility. A more walkable Old York Road would therefore become the jewel in the crown that shows the world that when it comes to transportation, Jenkintown values foot traffic above all else, and as a community, makes itself available to support it.
No one much likes bureaucracies, except maybe those who work in them. Bureaucrats have the tendency to do most anything to justify their existence, whether or not their role has any real value to the society for which they serve. “My job here is done,” said no government official ever.
In a local government, this manifests itself in several ways, but mainly through all the extra fees paid for services we otherwise expect to pay through our taxes. Jenkintown Borough compels us to fix their sidewalks and curbs, and then gives us a “break” on the permit fee, charging only $25 for the permit (as opposed to $40 per $1000 of the cost of the project). On what planet does that make any sense?
On Planet Jenkintown, this fee covers the “inspection costs”, meaning that the people already on the payroll somehow cost extra when we ask them to do the jobs that the Borough hired them to do in the first place. Which bureaucrat’s position does this practice justify? How can you call this anything but yet another municipal cash grab?
After last month’s Council meeting, this weighed on my mind as I considered Borough Manager George Locke’s response to this blog’s arguments for a better sidewalk policy. We believe that the current sidewalk and curb policy costs too much and despite what Council President Deborra Sines-Pancoe says, produces inferior, if not laughable, results.
Almost on cue, after I read my statement to Council, Mr. Locke presented a spreadsheet suggesting that if the Borough actually assumed responsibility for its own pedestrian infrastructure, residents would have to swallow a $350 property tax hike. This then begs the question, would you rather pay $350 per year extra for as long as you own the house or would you rather pay three, four, ten thousand dollars all at once, and whenever the Borough happens by and finds yet another crack in your walkway or curb?
Before you answer that, let’s first examine Mr. Locke’s position-justifying methodology. Mr. Locke presented his numbers as they would apply concurrently with the ongoing paving program, which resurfaces nearly half, or more, of the borough streets within three years. The Borough repaved the entire length of Runnymede Avenue (and along one stretch, twice). Just eyeballing it, residents rebuilt about thirty-to-forty percent of the sidewalks along the same street.
The corner of West and Runnymede: Why do anything once? It’s only tax dollars, after all.
You could argue against the urgency of this program (and we do), but no one in their right mind would suggest that the Borough needs to rebuild 100% of that abutting curb and sidewalk within such a short time span. This blog never suggested that. Even if it could afford it, the borough doesn’t need it, and the residents wouldn’t want it. This blog has always advocated a measured program of maintenance, done on a wholesale basis, with a plan for the future.
Obviously, Mr. Locke’s “shock and awe” numbers do lend justification to his position, his program, and the outdated, arbitrary, and needlessly disruptive sidewalk policy the Borough is too lazy to change.
We’re told by many residents that George Locke is a great guy. No doubt that he’d readily buy a round of beers at Guild Hall for his buddies, but this Borough needs someone with a level of expertise, energy, and imagination clearly not in evidence for anyone who walks around this walkable community. The inspection process, something Mr. Locke is reportedly expert in, was rife with inconsistencies, confusion, and troubling stories of politicking. The management of this whole dubious paving program can best be described as bumbling.
Then again, perhaps “vision” and “imagination” isn’t in a borough manager’s job description. The council-manager form of government often doesn’t require its managers to actually lead or advocate for its interests. So, who does?
Maybe a borough manager sees his role as someone who only needs to adhere to the ordinance playbook, take his marching orders from the Council, collect his check and go home. Either way, Jenkintown deserves better.
