Thrown For A Loop In Eagle

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2009

Pardon me if I interrupt your morning debate over the entire health care reform issue, from death panels to public options, but I’d like a chance to talk about something that has been bothering me for several days now. I’d really like to put it aside, get it off my chest, and deal with it now so that when my concerns are all out in the open I can rejoin the entire health care reform debate, as the program is apparently already in progress and I don’t have TiVo.

So: What’s up with this Eagle Loop Road business?

If you have ventured north above Eagleview Boulevard on Route 100 in the past month of so, you know what I’m talking about. If you have not ventured north above Eagleview Boulevard on Route 100 in the past month or so, give yourself a treat and do so post haste. Make sure, however, that your collision insurance is up to date, because let me tell you.

Some background: A few years ago, the good folks in Upper Uwchlan (pending motto: “Where The Car Dealerships Look Like Churches, And The Churches Look Like Car Dealerships.”) looked outside the window of the township building and noticed something unusual: traffic wasn’t moving. Route 100 had become, little by little, inch by inch, McMansion by McMansion, the New Jersey Turnpike at rush hour of North Central Chester County. Being the good folks that they are, the Upper Uwchlan officials decided to do something to ease the congestion and -- realizing they could not simply erect metal highway barriers at the township line and keep people from driving through-- the concept of the Eagle Loop Road was born.

All good reporters love a road construction story. Because roads take so long to build (pending motto for East Whiteland: “Forty Years And Counting On That Alleged Route 202 Widening Phase”), you always have stories about them in reserve. Anytime the workload slows down and no new health care reform forums have been scheduled, you can whip off a “Fill-In-The-Blank” Road Construction Update in and hour and a half. Trust me, I know. For several years, I made my reputation on Exton Bypass stories. I could speed dial the Chester County Planning Commission official in charge of the project, Lee Whitmore, without opening my eyes from my afternoon nap.

The Daily Local News once had a reporter assigned to pay attention to the Eagle Loop Road fulltime, ever since it was first floated as a surefire way to make sure the commute time from Black Horse Road (pending motto: “Best Damn Dirt Back Road in North Central Chester County”) to Hannum’s Harley Davidson did not approach 90 minutes. But that reporter has left our employ and no one has taken up the Eagle Loop Road gauntlet, so to speak, in quite some time. Imagine my surprise, then, when on a recent trip north above Eagleview Boulevard I discovered that the project had been finished.

The original idea, as I understood it, was to build a road that looped around Eagle – hence, the name – so that motorists not wanting to stop off for a test drive at CarSense or have quiet dinner at the Eagle Tavern could just avoid the whole section of Route 100 through the village. Which made sense to me, even though I once reported a series of stories about how G.O. Carlson Boulevard in Caln, another inspired road project, had utterly failed to divert the thorough traffic off Route 30 in Thorndale.

But when I approached Eagle last month, driving under the Pennsylvania Turnpike Overpass like a motor driven Alice down the rabbit hole, my idea of the loop road became, well, shall we say, challenged. The road was going left when I was used to driving straight. Strange signs offered me detours onto something called Ticonderoga Boulevard (pending motto: “Benedict Arnold Has Nothing To Do With Us.”) I wasn’t certain whether a left hand turn meant a hard left or a soft left, and a woman in an Audi A6 decided that a helpful toot of her horn might get me going in the right direction. At least that is what I think she was trying to communicate with her helpful hand gesture.

The road makes no sense, or at least will take some getting used to along with some dented fenders. I know there have been traffic issues, because the good folks at Wolfington Bus Co. have placed a pair of school buses blockading their property and a portable toilet has been set up right at the loop road stoplight, presumably so that those local Eagle residents who want to watch the comedy show that has become rush hour there have a suitable place to relieve themselves when the laughter loosens things up a bit too much.

OK. I’m finished now. It is off my chest. The Eagle Loop Road may not be what I had imagined it would be, but I am certain that in short measure I will become as used to it as I have the Exton Bypass and G.O. Carlson Boulevard. So now you can fill me in on this entire health care reform debate thing (pending motto: “You Can Have My Blue Cross Card When You Pry It From My Cold, Dead Fingers.”)