Penn State’s plans for a new parking structure on west campus were met with criticisms and concerns at Monday night’s State College Borough Council meeting.
It wasn’t so much the deck itself that drew worries — though at 1,670 spaces on six or seven levels, the largest deck in Centre County, its height did raise concerns among some council members. Rather, it was Penn State’s proposed plan for how vehicles would access and exit the garage and its potential for dumping traffic into Holmes-Foster neighborhood streets.
‘There’s something reminiscent about this that something that has to happen that belongs to the campus ends up being put in the town,’ said council member Janet Engeman, citing Penn State’s ultimately failed attempt to run a natural gas pipeline through borough neighborhoods to campus earlier this decade.
Council President Evan Myers said it was ‘disrespectful’ that the university did not reconsider an alternate route connecting to Blue Course Drive suggested by council at a meeting in the summer.
The parking deck would be built on the site of the current Red A lot and would consolidate existing west campus surface lots as well as some core campus spaces, resulting in a net of about 400 new parking spaces. Consolidating the surface lots then allows Penn State to develop the area for new College of Engineering buildings, with plans to construct three new facilities. CATA would run a campus bus route through the area and the parking garage would have covered storage for bicycles. Penn State has, over the past year, discussed plans with the borough, Ferguson Township, CATA, PennDOT and the Centre Region Planning Agency.
As previously discussed as a possibility, university planner Neil Sullivan and Robert Watts, of transportation engineer consultant McCormick Taylor, said Monday night that based on feasibility and traffic impact studies, the university wants to maintain access to the area via White Course Drive off of North Atherton Street and add another connecting road extending South Buckhout Street off of West College Avenue to the new garage.
The roads would not directly connect and to cut through from College Avenue to North Atherton Street, a vehicle would first need to go through the garage.
The new access route would make Buckhout Street and College Avenue a signalized intersection, with a left turn lane in place for traffic driving west to east on College Avenue and removing the concrete island that currently guides eastbound traffic south onto Buckhout.
Watts said the traffic impact study found that 65 percent of traffic would still access the deck by White Course Drive and that there would be only a small increase in vehicles using Corl, Buckhout and Sparks streets as cut-throughs — about 8 percent of all new trips to the deck.
He also said that the new access road would alleviate current traffic congestion from White Course apartments through Sparks and Patterson streets.
But several council members and residents said it was likely that inbound and outbound drivers would use neighborhood streets to avoid the South Atherton Street intersections with College Avenue and Beaver Avenue.
Gill Street resident Eric Boeldt said northbound traffic may try to use Westerly Parkway to Sparks Street to College Avenue in order to get to the Buckhout Street access. Watts said that signals along Westerly, morning traffic to State College Area High School and the signal at Sparks and Beaver likely would make it inconvenient for commuters to go that route.
Several West Fairmount Avenue residents noted that traffic leaving the deck via Buckhout Street will be inclined to follow it straight through to its termination at Fairmount then travel east toward the intersection with South Atherton Street, rather than turning onto Beaver Avenue. Some also said the hilly nature of Holmes-Foster neighborhood streets lends itself to speeding without clear sightlines.
‘I’m concerned commuters are not going to be as well-behaved as you think they are,’ Fairmount Avenue resident Bill Hartman said.
Residents and council members cited particular concerns about increased traffic on neighborhood streets during morning commute hours, when students also are walking to Corl Street Elementary School and State High.
Council member Theresa Lafer said if the plan goes forward she would ‘insist’ that Penn State pay for traffic calming measures on neighborhood streets.
‘Speed humps and other traffic mitigation would have to be put along those roads making it far less attractive for someone who is trying to get to work on time, before this has a fatal accident,’ Lafer said.
Watts said access points were evaluated at Corl, Butz and Osmond streets as well but eliminated because of neighborhood impacts and street width.
A direct route from Blue Course Drive to west campus was previously studied but deemed not feasible because of an underground dry well that has effectively managed stormwater and prevented flooding dating back to when railroads were first built in the area in the 1800s.
But in the summer, borough council asked the university to reevaluate a potential access road from Blue Course Drive around the dry well.
Sullivan and Watts admitted the possibility was not reevaluated.
‘I find it disrespectful, quite frankly, that this council asked you to consider another way over to Blue Course and you said you did not,’ Myers said. ‘That is not a town-gown approach to anything. It’s once again the university imposing what it wants on the rest of the community.’
Engeman and Lafer said it appeared the issue is that the university does not want to disrupt its golf courses to make the Blue Course Drive access point possible.
‘The thing that’s in your way is the golf course. And I guess nobody ever wants to think about putting anything across the golf course,’ Engeman said. ‘Why is it the town gets saddled with this mess and the campus doesn’t take responsibility for it?’
‘Take some of the White Course,’ Lafer added. ‘You’ve been nibbling at that like a bunch of ducks for 20 years now. Every building on that side of campus is on what used to be White Course when I moved here. Inch-by-inch, building-by-building it’s going to disappear. I suggest you take a section of it and use it for a road.’
Sullivan said environmental restraints precluded the Blue Course Drive route and access streets off of College Avenue were more viable than building a road through the golf course.
Myers, who has lived in Holmes-Foster for decades, said he is sure drivers will be going through the neighborhoods to find their way out of traffic and that residents will bear a cost.
‘The people who live there are not interested in diverters, not interested in people getting hurt because of the traffic. But they’re going to have to bear the cost because the university won’t bear the cost of trying to figure out a way to build a road, even if they have to take a couple holes of the golf course,’ Myers said.
Myers added that he wants the borough and university to work together to find a solution that meets the needs of university staff and that works for neighborhoods.
‘I think we both have more work to do and I think we can get that accomplished,’ Myers said.
Planning director Ed LeClear said the borough has received the initial traffic impact study and next it will be reviewed by State College’s traffic consultant. That review will be posted to the borough’s website. Penn State will have the opportunity to make corrections to the review and it’s up to borough staff to ultimately approve.
Watts said the university is looking to receive approval from the borough on the traffic impact study in February.
While no public hearings are required for the traffic impact study, the study would be part of the process of approving land development plans, which do require a public hearing. Penn State has targeted a 2020 opening for the parking deck.
For the other new buildings Penn State plans to build on west campus, they would, along with Westgate Building, form a quad. One, planned for 2022, will be attached to the parking structure and be a ‘a really beautiful and iconic building,’ Sullivan said. Another closest to Westgate and intended for 2023 would have student-centered areas such as a library and study spaces to ‘be a beacon of a hub right as they enter this part of campus.’ A planned construction date for the third building is to be determined.
Some of the uses currently housed on central campus in Hammond and Sackett buildings and the Engineering Units will be relocated to new facilities. Hammond Building, Engineering Units A, B and C and portions of Sackett Building eventually will be replaced with new facilities, according to a letter of interest for architect proposals.
The entire College of Engineering Facilities Master Plan is expected to be developed over the next 10 years.
