West Chest Pike Needs the Lights Removed (Chester, West Chester: city hall, houses)

[MikeNigh]

Anyone know who we'd go to to have the stop lights removed from west chester pike? Would it have to be to different city council meetings across the pike? Of course it needs some lights at key points like 476 and route 1. I am certain this would raise the value of all the residential around the pike because it is torture crawling in and out of it or through it.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

Anyone know who we'd go to to have the stop lights removed from west chester pike? Would it have to be to different city council meetings across the pike? Of course it needs some lights at key points like 476 and route 1. I am certain this would raise the value of all the residential around the pike because it is torture crawling in and out of it or through it.

Hopefully no one, because removing all the stop lights without converting it to limited access highway (which would require loads of eminent domain seizings, along with millions in tax-dollars to install on-ramps, etc.) would be dangerous as hell.

[MikeNigh]

I come from Orlando which is world class in moving people through the city and I've seen plenty of roads like this there. This many stop lights is not required. All you need to do is remove (most of in this case) the stop lights and provide a few extra turn off / u-turn lanes and it works great. No need to expand outwards and take property.

The pike is the only westward road out of philly, it MUST become a means of faster transportation eventually or Philly will dramatically and ignorantly suffer. Especially when jobs giants like the North American SAP HQ (one of the top 5 software companies in the world) have decided to situate themselves directly west of Philly.

http://www.softwaretop100.org/global...0-edition-2011

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by MikeNigh

I come from Orlando which is world class in moving people through the city and I've seen plenty of roads like this there. This many stop lights is not required. All you need to do is remove (most of in this case) the stop lights and provide a few extra turn off / u-turn lanes and it works great. No need to expand outwards and take property.

The pike is the only westward road out of philly, it MUST become a means of faster transportation eventually or Philly will dramatically and ignorantly suffer. Especially when Jobs giants like the North American SAP HQ (one of the top 5 software companies in the world) has decided to situate themselves directly west of Philly.

Global Software Top 100 - Edition 2011 - The World's Largest Software Companies - Software Top 100

What lights would you remove? As far as necessary lights go, I think the ones at Darby, Eagle, Lawrence, Sproul, Newtown Street, and Providence Roads qualify.

[MikeNigh]

Well these are the ones I come across...

One's that should stay...
Newtown Street
Spring field (fringe)

One's that can go -
St Albans Cir
The nameless light directly east of St Albans Cir
Bryn Mawr
Valley View Lane
Radnor Drive
Media Line
N/S Malin Rd

Essentially the idea isn't much different then how N Broad Street works in downtown Philly. It does the dramatic thing of not allowing left turns which is incredibly bothersome but is vital to getting people through (I'm not saying don't allow left turns).

I think the ones that need to stay are ones that hold just as much strength or more then west chester pike provides. Otherwise sadly people need to get through... That or some of the fringe ones need to be heavily bias towards west chester pike.

But ones like Valley View Lane and Radnor Drive are completely just small community entry / exits... that is over kill and the pike is full of them.

Also that list is basically only the ones from the center of Newtown Square to the eastern edge... I didn't actually notice there were that many just there.

[Fireshaker]

As someone who works in Newtown Square and has spent a lot of time dealing with West Chester Pike, I agree it can be torture to navigate. But it seems to me that the problem is not necessarily the number of lights, but the timing of the lights. There are plenty of "choke points" where traffic bottles up for no apparent reason.

[MikeNigh]

A good start would to just have the lights favor west chester pike 3 to 1 compared to how it already is. It won't take too much time for people to learn the change and make right and u-turns or to enter the pike at the more heavy intersections where the lights need to be closer to 1 to 1 still.

Bottom line is it is impossible for me to live downtown and work in Newtown square but not because of the distance because the light usage on the main artery westward out of philly is childishly and selfishly overloaded. West Chester Pike is not a "community main street", it is a mainline straight to the city hall center of Philly.

If there were any more lights on west chester pike they'd start putting them up for individual houses. Maybe this is just a wreckless "greed yourself out of money" use of all these town's wealth?