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TREDYFFRIN — Community leaders are working on a proposal to help sell the Paoli Transit Center project to neighbors who may be wary of it. The plan is to make the current Paoli Train Station, which will be demolished after the transit center is built, into a “village green.”

“Downtown Paoli has almost zero green space,” said Ed Auble, a Paoli Business Association member who helped craft the proposal. “If there were a village green, and it were well done, it would be something we could all point to as a Paoli landmark.”

Such a landmark would help the town, known mainly for its train station, develop a new identity, Auble added.

“We’ve even been toying with the idea of having an annual blues fest at the village green,” Auble said.

He acknowledged he may be getting ahead of himself — the village green proposal is in early stages, and it’s not on any official plans for the Paoli Transit Center.

For now, official plans call for the existing train station to be demolished and an intermodal transit center to be built 800 feet to its west. This transit center would include a parking garage and stops for local buses and Amtrak and SEPTA trains.

Amtrak and SEPTA are working with several municipal entities on the new transit center, which will be built on the Amtrak-owned Paoli Rail Yard, a vacant, 26-acre industrial site.

To help fund the transit center, Amtrak would allow a private developer to build a dense, mixed residential and commercial development on the rest of the rail yard.

Many Paoli residents are unhappy with this proposal. They believe the new real estate development and transit center will draw more traffic to the town’s frequently clogged roads.

But there is evidence the “village green” proposal has convinced some residents that they could see benefits from the transit center development.

“Any plan that includes green space would be fantastic,” said Betsy Allinson, a Paoli resident who has served as spokeswoman for her community at many transit center planning meetings.

But, Allinson added, “Our main concern will still be whether Paoli’s roads can handle the traffic generated by new developments.”

The village green proposal, which Auble crafted in conjunction with Paoli Business Association member Dave Roland and former Tredyffrin Supervisor Paul Drucker, calls for a government entity to purchase the old train station property from Amtrak once the new transit center is built. Public, and possibly private, funds would be used to make the purchase and turn the property into a park.

The earliest that ground could break on the new transit center is the beginning of the next decade, according to officials involved in the transit center project.

Drucker, who is running for the state House’s 157th District, said a village green would benefit Amtrak by driving up property values in the new transit center development.

“The economic advantage to Amtrak can’t even be debated,” Drucker said.

County Commissioner Carol Aichele said the county might consider putting open-space funds toward the village green project.

“It certainly falls within municipal grants portion of the open-space program,” Aichele said. “The county regularly considers providing funds for parks, and we’ll certainly consider this one.”

An Amtrak representative did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
©The Phoenix 2008

TREDYFFRIN — The Paoli train station project received a $500,000 bipartisan boost from Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach and Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak. The pair jointly announced the federal earmark for Amtrak to build a new transit center at the Paoli Rail Yard.

The congressmen said the new transit center will have implications beyond regional transit.

“We recognize, Joe Sestak and I, that this is such an important project for the continued redevelopment of this area,” said Gerlach, R-6th, of West Pikeland. “It will improve the quality of life and the quality of transit here.”

Sestak, D-7th, of Edgmont, has opposed the change in FAA flight patterns that would take many of the Philadelphia International Airport’s flights over residential areas in his district. He said a better Paoli Transit Center could help decrease reliance on air travel.

“Many of the flights leaving from the airport are flying to destinations less than 200 miles away,” Sestak said. “Those people should be using this train station.”

The $500,000 earmark will go toward construction of a “multi-modal” transit center that will serve Amtrak and SEPTA trains, as well as local buses. According to plans, it will be built 800 feet west of the current Paoli Train Station, a local landmark many people in this Main Line town scorn and call “decrepit.”

The question is, when will the new transit center be built?

Amtrak, which owns the station as well as the adjacent Paoli Rail Yard, plans to fund the new transit center by allowing a private developer to build a dense, mixed residential and commercial development on the rail yard site.

But because of a recent zoning dispute, that developer might not be able to build densely enough to make the project profitable. The Paoli Rail Yard was contaminated with PCBs, and although it is for the most part cleaned up, developing the site will still be expensive.

Zoning and cost concerns caused the developer, as of yet unnamed, to consider pulling out of the project late last year, according to officials familiar with the project.

But these officials said recent negotiations have put the project back on track.

John DiBuonaventuro, a Tredyffrin supervisor involved in the negotiations, acknowledged this at Saturday’s check presentation.

“The project has done a 180,” he said.

Earlier this year, negotiations were stalled because Tredyffrin and Willistown townships, the two municipalities that exercise zoning control over the rail yard, had different visions for the parcel’s development, according to officials.

DiBuonaventuro and Willistown Supervisor Norm MacQueen said those differences have been ironed out.

The $500,000 from the federal government will be put into use as soon as negotiations between the developer, the transit agencies and the municipalities involved in the transit center project are complete, according to Rich Burnfield, SEPTA’s chief financial officer.

“But it’s always good to have the money in place so that when the agreement is in place we don’t have to then get the money,” Burnfield said.

According to estimates officials involved in the project have given over the past months, the transit center project could get under way early next decade.

©Daily Local News 2008

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In the film are Ed Auble and Barbara Mangos representing our town of Paoli. See how they and we fit into a greater world picture of time and place through the eyes of these international film makers. Click here for entire document and synopsis of film.

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