South St. traffic study slated for this fall

The hundreds of cars, bicycles and pedestrians that cross the South Street Bridge every day are going to have to find new routes across the Schuylkill River when the bridge closes for reconstruction this fall.

Which alternate routes will they choose?

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is funding a study to answer that question.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission yesterday formally agreed to carry out the study, which will evaluate both the effects of the bridge's closure and larger traffic issues in the area.

The study will survey current bridge users, count traffic across the bridge and use computers to model projected changes in traffic patterns as a result of the closure.

Construction on the bridge will probably begin in about two months, according to Gene Blaum, a spokesman for PennDOT.

Chuck Davies, PennDOT assistant district executive for design, said the information from the study is not urgently needed by the city but will be useful for future construction-project planning.

DVRPC ordinarily conducts several thousand traffic counts each year, according to Scott Brady, who oversees its travel-monitoring department.

The commission's traffic counters are "blanketing" the area around the bridge now and will do so again once construction starts, Brady said, to measure how the bridge closure affects the amount of traffic along other bridges and roads in the area.

In addition to gathering statistical data on the flow of traffic on and around the bridge, DVRPC will spend one day before the bridge closes distributing surveys to people traveling over it - both motorized and non-motorized travelers.

The surveys will ask travelers where they are going and coming from, how they plan to reach their destinations and how they will reach those destinations when the bridge is closed.

Surveys will be handed out to motorists while they are stopped at red lights so as not to hold up traffic.

Brady said the survey will focus on how much extra traffic other routes will accumulate, and how Philadelphians' general travel and consumer habits will change as a result of the construction.

"Are people going to no longer make the trip? Are they going to make the trip but choose a different destination? If they were going to a CVS on Market Street will they choose a different CVS instead?" Brady asked, giving examples of possible survey questions.

He said the survey will be "as painless as possible" and hopes everybody who gets one completes it and mails it back to the DVRPC.

"When we have good data, we're more efficient at spending tax dollars," he said.

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