3rd Street Bridge Moving Forward

Despite talk in the last few days that there may be alternatives to repairing the bridge by breaching it, or just not doing anything to it at all, Council President, Pete Alayankian again reiterated last night at council workshop that the bridge repair "is going to happen." In fact it was mentioned that breaching the dam/bridge and draining Broomall lake would be far costlier to the borough than the current situation of fixing it.  


There's still work to do, but residents are working hard to ensure that the new structure is eco-friendly, appealing and safe.  I think that's great and would encourage residents to take part in that too.  There will be a boro. committee setup to address such concerns, as well as further research conducted by the borough engineer on what flexibility Media has with the design. 


It was unclear last night what immediate traffic modifications would be needed, but this is a situation where an increase in traffic on this street will need to be addressed.  Another stop sign at 3rd and Lemon?  Speed bumps?  Traffic study? Bike lanes?   One item brought up entailed a sidewalk.  For those who weren't in attendance, PennDot stated that without a sidewalk on either side of the bridge, it wouldn't be possible to have a sidewalk to only span the length of the bridge.  Their explaination basically stated ".....a side walk has to connect something and can't dead end."  A bike lane also fell into this category.

Thankfully, Media is now having constructive discussion on Third St. Bridge.  A year ago, very few people thought the bridge repair would have moved this quickly, if at all.  Without a change in leadership, it wouldn't have.  To receive money for this project from the county and state, didn't just happen by luck.  Confidence in Media's NEW leadership and performance proven ability is what made the difference.