You are invited to participate in a special meeting of the Friends of Glen Providence Park Third Street Greenway/Dam Committee:

Thursday, July 26th

7:00 p.m.

Media Fellowship House

302 S. Jackson St.

The purpose of the meeting will be to collectively develop a proposal for the design and use of the Third Street project to present to Media Borough Council in light of its recent decision to proceed with replacing the dam.

A design for the park and park users

As you know, FrOG has advocated for removing the dam and restoring Broomall’s Run stream, and we continue to assert that this would be the most environmentally responsible course of action. However, given Council’s 5-2 vote on May 17th in favor of dam replacement, FrOG is also advocating for a “roadway” design and use plan that is most favorable to the park and to park users. All along, we have promoted the idea of a greenway that could serve as an attractive gateway to Media while prioritizing the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists while allowing for passage of emergency vehicles.

Bring your ideas

Join us as we brainstorm ideas for what a new Third Street dam/bridge could look like. We will have the services of an advanced landscape architecture student who will be translating our ideas into visual images so that Borough Council and the community at large can imagine the greenway and rally behind it.

Council has already made some decisions that lean in favor of FrOG’s positions on the project, and it is not too late the further influence the outcome! Bring your creativity and any photographs of similar projects that you think could inspire ideas. While the FrOG Steering Committee will have final approval on FrOG’s design proposal, we would like to have enthusiastic participation from many FrOG supporters in crafting the best proposal possible.

For background information on the project, including FrOG’s advocacy work, technical issues having to do with dam design as well as the political history of the Third Street project, please visit the Bridge/Dam pages of the website, as well as the Dam/Bridge category on the sidebar.

At the Special Meeting, one of the requests of Friends of Glen Providence Park was for Media Borough Council to conduct a peer review of the 3rd Street dam and bridge design.

What is peer review:

While this is a foreign concept for most of us, peer review is common in engineering. As John Harrison of Schnabel Engineering said at the Special Meeting on Oct. 13, all projects have some form of peer review done, and ours is no exception, as PennDOT will conduct a technical peer review of the design to make sure that it is, first and foremost, safe. The kind of peer review that we are requesting is more specific the environmental impact of the dam.

Who does peer review:

We would like the Borough to contract an independent design review to look at how to reduce the destruction of park land in the dam design. Our cursory inquiries have strongly suggested that there are, in fact, some possibilities worth exploring, and we feel that a professional expert’s opinion is worth the money. Some design alternatives might come to light that reduce the impact on the park and reduce costs.

Why do peer review:

We need this sort of review because Media Borough did not ask Schnabel Engineering to minimize the impact on the park when they first contracted them in 1998. This may have been an implicit part of the understanding, but there is no statement on record declaring preservation of the park as a goal or need. With a long-term structure like a dam, which may last 100 years or more, it is important to investigate all the options thoroughly, especially when impacting historic public park land.

Who pays for peer review:

Of course, money is an important question. While John Harrison mentioned a cost of $40,000 for a design peer review, our understanding is that the cost would be markedly less, more to the tune of $10,000 or less. The Borough would have to pay for this out-of-pocket, but this is a small fraction of the $250,000 the Borough is spending on design fees as well as the $4+ million price tag. This is not ‘free money’ that is funding this bridge, by the way. All of Pennsylvania taxpayers are funding this bridge.

In sum:

Because the initial goal of the Borough was simply to replace the road, and not reduce the impact on the park, we feel that an independent design review is a prudent path for Media Borough and Delaware County to choose. The expense is minimal relative to the costs of the project, and should the review reveal cost savings as well as a means to save park land, a peer review would be invaluable. Regardless of the findings of an independent review, Media Borough can move forward more confidently with an expert second opinion.