By Saxon Daugherty – Staff Writer
Some members of Oil City Council are not in favor of potential changes to the Route 8 expressway between Franklin and Barkeyville.
One of the ideas being looked at by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is turning 20 miles of the roadway from four lanes to a two-lane corridor.
“It seems like a big step backwards,” Councilman Ron Gustafson said at the panel’s meeting Thursday.
PennDOT’s plans are far from final, but the agency is holding meetings with stakeholders to receive feedback.
Any plan on PennDOT’s part is about four to five years away from being implemented in the area commonly known as Radar Valley, and a number public meetings are expected to be held beforehand.
Councilman Dale Massie said Thursday that the change would slow down heavy truck traffic on the roadway, essentially doubling the time it takes to get from Franklin to Barkeyville.
As a result, Massie believes people will be less inclined to live in the area without easy access to Interstate 80.
“We are trying to keep businesses here,” Massie said.
“Highway access drives economic development,” City Manager Mark Schroyer said. “Everybody looks for easy transportation.”
Gustafson echoed those sentiments, saying it’s a trend that is especially true in northwestern Pennsylvania.
“We are kind of bottlenecked here,” he said. “If you look around the country, most of the growth is along these big highways.”
Gustafson also said it is disheartening to know the expressway was never finished, as there is still a small stretch between the Wesley exit and Barkeyville that is only two lanes wide.
Both Gustafson and Massie expressed additional frustrations regarding the state’s gas tax, which is the highest in the country.
The funding is supposed to be put back into maintaining and improving Pennsylvania’s roads, but Gustafson said it appears a large chunk of the money is being used to subsidize state police services.
Upon request of City Council, Schroyer said the city will invite PennDOT District Executive Bill Petit to a future meeting so he can discuss the plan.
Gustafson recently drafted a letter that would be sent out to local legislators, expressing his support for a $25-per-person fee to be levied upon municipalities that don’t have their own paid police force.
The panel decided Thursday to look over the letter again and then discuss it further at the next meeting to see if it still wants to move forward with sending the letter to legislators.
Gustafson said he is backing the fee because he believes a large portion of the tax base in Pennsylvania contributes nothing financially to support emergency services.
“As these services diminish in the townships, they will continue to look toward the cities for help,” he said. “The $25 fee would be a good icebreaker, just to get people used to the idea that ‘hey, this is for all of us.'”
Oil City’s fire department is relied upon by surrounding communities to provide certain services, but there is concern that it will be extremely difficult to maintain the level of service if a solution isn’t found soon.
“We have a flat line of revenue,” Massie said. “The people in the townships aren’t paying their fair share…We can’t keep kicking the can down the road.”
