Convoys Blue Route Trucks Stirring Up Dust, Complaints

The statistics tell the story:

On each weekday since June, a convoy of trucks - each weighing more than 70,000 pounds - has weaved for 12 miles through Radnor, Lower Merion and Upper Merion Townships and the Borough of West Conshohocken, carrying dirt excavated

from the proposed Blue Route.

According to Lois Morasco, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, 600,000 cubic yards of dirt have to be hauled from the Radnor construction site to make room for the Lancaster Avenue interchange, a series of ramps and roads that will include a $3.2 million bridge across Lancaster Avenue.

The hauling is being done by about 50 trucks a day, each making 10 to 15 round trips. Each house along the route might be passed by a truck up to 1,500 times a day. The excavation probably won't be completed until early next year.

The destination of the trucks is a construction site in Plymouth Township at the point where the Blue Route, officially called Interstate 476, the Mid- County Expressway, joins the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Residents have complained about the traffic generated by the stream of trucks, which at peak hours reaches two or three every minute, as well as dust, vibrations and noise. But most concede the results will be worth the disturbance.

In the long run, the $64 million Blue Route, under construction for more than 20 years and expected to be finished in November 1990, spells relief.

According to a PennDOT environmental impact study, traffic congestion should decrease on roads near the Blue Route in Radnor, Upper Merion and Lower Merion, but will probably increase on Lancaster Avenue. However, an interchange under construction on Lancaster Avenue, just west of Route 320, is expected to speed traffic on and off the Blue Route and through the section of Radnor where dirt, trucks and construction vehicles now tie up traffic, the study said.

The section of the Blue Route that crosses Route 32 in Delaware County also has had extensive excavation. At the site, near Cardinal O'Hara High School in Marple Township, about 300,000 cubic yards of dirt are being excavated. The work began in early May.