Blog: Oaks: Center Ice Traffic Raises the Ire of Neighbors

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One of the issues that caused many Oaks residents to organize is the increasing volume of traffic associated with commercial activity coursing through the narrow core residential village streets. On Friday (Oct. 28) Oaks neighbors Adam Williams and John Garay provided their first-hand observations about a traffic nightmare that affects quality of life in Oaks.

About Friday night, from Adam's email:

• Friday night 9:06 p.m.
• Eight police cars at Center Ice: Collegeville, Lower Providence, Upper Providence all responding
• Regular occurrence
• Non stop traffic - complete chaos
• Cars lined up and down Brower
• Police directing traffic at Egypt Road
• People throwing garbage out their windows, radios blaring
• Driving fast in large groups of cars

"What does this cost the township? The current state is out of control. This should be addressed. I welcome you to stand on my lawn or even sit in my house on a Friday night to experience the real Center Ice," Adam writes.

John adds: “I was at the open skate at Center Ice tonight. There seemed to be a big hockey game happening on the other rink. We noticed three police cars, with one young man in handcuffs and a policeman asking a young woman where "the security guy that was hit" was. On our way out, we passed three police cars with flashing lights coming down Brower, then there were another four police cars coming down Egypt to get down there (I didn't know UPT police had so many police cars!). I feel for all of you in the Village. While it's great that the owners of Center Ice are receptive to our neighborhood discussions, the fact is that facility is the center of a lot of traffic and commotion. And then to add a THIRD rink?”

There's a short video taken along Brower Avenue. It looks more like stadium traffic after a football game than what you'd expect along a narrow residential street.

Before anyone jumps to judgment, let’s put this into perspective. Adam has been working diligently alongside other Oaks neighbors to keep the dialog open between Center Ice, Audubon Land Development (ALD) and Township officials. Center Ice wants to expand by adding a third skating rink, along with the expected increases in vehicle volume. ALD owns the deteriorating Penco Road that Center Ice wants to use to keep its traffic off neighborhood streets. 

Center Ice clients are major contributors to the speeding and congestion problems on Brower Avenue that often spill onto the other side streets. ALD's tenants and other businesses contribute volumes of car and truck traffic, too, that cruise Brower and Highland as they pass through the residential neighborhood. In response, the Township did step up enforcement, periodically writing lots of tickets along the narrow blocks of Brower between Egypt Road and Montgomery Avenue.

Adam has also been talking directly to the owner of Center Ice and nudging the Township, along with ALD, towards implementation of a new roadway that has been promised for a long time. 

So what's the point of all this? In Upper Providence we're living with the legacy of inconsistent township planning and the appearance of a "developer first" mentality, both things that we'd like to change through dialog and the electoral process.   

Remember when ALD's convention center opened to the train and gun show on the same day? There were huge traffic backups. Immediately afterward, the township tore down the four-way stop at Station Avenue and Montgomery to accommodate future traffic issues for the developer. No meetings, no hearings, no notice to the residents, not even any complaints from the citizens, they just did it.

Station Avenue became what it is today, a de-facto unregulated arterial pumping more traffic onto Egypt and Pawlings Road as a 422 bypass with accompanying impacts to Montgomery, Highland and Brower in the Oaks village.

Traffic has also increased significantly on Gumbes Road because of Black Rock Road commuters. There is no speed enforcement on Station Avenue because it is ALD's private road. Upper Providence won’t patrol it but is obligated to respond to the accidents caused by speed and the lack of proper signs and traffic controls.      

The commercial zone that bounds Oaks along Station Avenue and the river is the growing contributor to the car and truck traffic that threatens the residential character of the Oaks village.  ALD has promised some moves toward remediation but wants to horse-trade traffic planning action for a promise of zoning changes to allow commercial development along Egypt Road between Brower and Station, space for more shops, restaurants and another big box anchor store, or so they say. They will soon tear the houses down setting the stage for more parking lots and traffic. 

More congestion and neighborhood road traffic impacts will start next year when PennDOT begins expanding Egypt Road off 422 where Wawa will take root, another ALD project. Goodbye Oaks Gardens, hello 24-7 gas pumps and noise.  

There is also the threat of future high density residential development by ALD on top of new property they created by filling in the wetlands behind Highland Business Center. That would put thousands of car trips per day onto Highland and Brower ... development that ALD denies planning but we’re heard otherwise.   

The owner of Center Ice is actually a pretty good neighbor, agreeing to work with neighbors and the township to create a solution. In the interim, the problem is the bad behavior of Center Ice clients who race up and down Brower and the intransigence of ALD and the Township to fix Penco Road.  

I don't mean to give Hockey Moms a bad name, they do that all by themselves with their lack of consideration for Brower neighbors and their middle finger salutes to those who ask them to slow down. We'd all like to see Center Ice prosper. What we don't want is more congestion, more speed-related accidents, and more trash on the road, figuratively and literally.  

While the Township has made small moves to fix peripheral problems, they fail to show leadership toward a consolidated total solution. Case in point, when adopting the so-called Comprehensive Plan, they refused to consider current and future Station Avenue traffic in the Township Traffic Plan. The problem isn’t Center Ice. The problem is poor government and a lack of leadership.

Traffic related to commercial activity needs to be routed off ALL neighborhood streets and onto Station Avenue where it belongs. We don't have sidewalks, crosswalks or wide roads. The streets won't support all the traffic. We get nothing but empty promises from Supervisors and commitments for solutions with dates that come and go.

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