CRA Posts Video to Dispute Wawa Traffic Claims

Hot on the heels of Tuesday's controversial Planning Commission consideration of the proposed Wawa, the Conshohocken Revitalization Alliance has released a video they say disputes claims made by Wawa's development team that the location would not cause traffic problems in the borough.

Set at locations in West Chester and Pottstown last May, the two-minute video mainly shows lines of four or five cars, waiting for breaks in traffic to turn out of the lot or into an intersection. At one point, a white van precariously waits to cross lanes of traffic into a Wawa.

However, representatives of the Provco Group, the developers of the Wawa proposal, said traffic patterns in the video are different than those in Conshohocken, in an statement to Patch.

"The video shows cars exiting and entering Wawa from heavy-trafficked streets without a clear distinction of nearby traffic lights," an e-mailed statement said. "[This is] a situation that is not similar to the patterns at 11th and Fayette."

The video accompanies a press release from the CRA, a collection of business and community members organized by Conshohocken's DeFazio Communications, which predicts the Wawa "will likely increase traffic and congestion and pose safety threats."

The release also challenges that engineers from McMahon Associates, Inc., which provided a traffic study presented at Tuesday's meeting, "failed to address the heavy truck traffic that is expected to frequent the store for deliveries and fuel, especially during night and early morning hours."

At the meeting, McMahon representative Casey Moore said that a October 2012 traffic study projected the Wawa would add about 44 "new" trips on the roadway during the peak morning hour and 60 "new" trips during the busiest evening hour. Representatives of the development team also said that they believed there were enough breaks in traffic on Fayette Street for vehicles to be able to turn left and right out of the lot without difficulty.

In addition, Moore said that southbound traffic would only likely stack by three or four cars, at most, while waiting to turn left across northbound lanes and into the lot. A representative from Wawa said that only a few delivery trucks would be needed daily, and that they could be scheduled for non-peak daytime hours.

Provco stood by its analysis Thursday.

"The traffic study conducted by McMahon Transportation Planners is a thorough study of the specific effects the proposed Wawa will have on Fayette Street traffic," the statement said. "The traffic study was conducted using the industry standard guidelines which include traffic data from existing similar Wawa stores... and will be reviewed by an independent traffic engineer hired by the borough as well as Penndot."

Representatives did not give any projections for the number of large trucks that would use the station to refuel on a daily basis.

The Planning Commission will continue its discussion of the Wawa proposal on Jan. 22, 2013.