Jun 13, 2013 3 min read

The reconstruction of College Street in Washington is likely to take as long to complete as the recent work on Lincoln Street. This is no simple repaving job; the road bed is being replaced and underground utilities repaired and rerouted. Yet, the duration of the work has caused some onlookers to comment that the great pyramids of Egypt may have taken less time to erect.

An article in Wednesday’s edition noted that work on the Highland-Ridge portion of the Route 19 corridor project would begin this summer, although exactly when depends on utility work and obtaining demolition permits for four buildings. Why the work on the permits and utilities was not begun long ago was not explained.

The corridor project – that is, the reconstruction of College and Lincoln streets and the reconfiguration of their intersection with Highland and Ridge avenues – was launched almost 20 years ago. In the fall of 1993, PennDOT agreed to do a traffic study of streets in Washington and East Washington and the Route 19 corridor. In addition to finding 12 intersections unsafe, the study concluded that signals should be improved throughout the city and traffic reduced on a number of streets. At that time, the plan called for College Street to carry Route 19 traffic in both directions; a portion of Lincoln Street would be closed; and Main Street would be designated “Route 19 Business.”

The proposed project ran into heated opposition from residents unwilling to surrender Lincoln Street to Washington & Jefferson College, and the plan was later modified to keep the street open.

PennDOT’s concern was to improve flow through the city of a national highway. But almost from its beginning, area residents and local elected officials saw the project as an opportunity to rid the city of unsightly, dilapidated buildings that greeted travelers as they entered the city from the north.

An editorial that was published in this space in September 1997 drove home the point:

“We have one cautionary note in this regard. It would be an embarrassment to the city if we route traffic through what now appears to be a slum. That includes Lincoln, North Main and even parts of South Main streets. Trash is everywhere, grass grows on the sidewalks and the gutters, there are boarded-up buildings, planters are not kept up and sidewalks are in disrepair. The entire route has to be cleaned up if the plan is to be a success.”

Since that time, sidewalks were replaced as part of the $12 million Main Street improvement project, but other problems remain. Those passing through Washington on Route 19, which runs from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, just north of Bradenton, Fla., still can’t help but notice empty storefronts, trash in gutters and dangerous, abandoned buildings. They might ask themselves: Is this a place where I’d want to live or have a business?

It is for this reason that the Route 19 corridor project is so important to the city.

By the way, it is estimated that the largest of the pyramids at Giza took about 20 years to build. Here’s hoping that the Route 19 corridor project, from planning to its eventual completion, doesn’t take too much longer than that.