Ben Franklin Bridge pedestrian ramp may be built after all

A proposed bicycle and pedestrian ramp for the Ben Franklin Bridge, cut from the budget last month, may be restored to the Delaware River Port Authority's 2012 spending plans.

A DRPA board committee agreed Wednesday to reconsider the project while seeking federal funds to help pay for it.

The $3.2 million ramp on the Camden side of the bridge would replace a steep staircase with 39 steps. The Philadelphia side has a gently ascending sidewalk that leads to the bridge's walkway.

After the DRPA cut the ramp from its five-year capital budget, advocates for bicyclists, pedestrians, and the handicapped called for the agency to reconsider.

Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner, a member of the DRPA board, proposed that unspent DRPA economic development money be used to build the ramp. The DRPA board last month returned $10 million in development funds to the agency.

The proposal was supported Wednesday by letters from New Jersey U.S. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, and 15 area agencies and companies, including the Campbell Soup Co., Cooper University Hospital, and AARP.

Jeff Nash, the Camden County freeholder who is the DRPA's vice-chairman and chairman of its finance committee, asked for a delay until Feb. 1 to pursue federal funding.

Nash said as much as $3 million could be available from "congestion mitigation and air quality" funds controlled by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

That money typically is divided among applicants from the nine-county Philadelphia region for transportation projects.

John Boyle, research director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, said it was "optimistic" to expect that even $500,000 could be collected by DRPA in the competition for the federal funds, and he said it could take more than a year for federal money to be made available.

"I hope this isn't becoming a political football . . . but it wouldn't be the first time we've seen projects used as political footballs at the DRPA," Boyle said.

Wagner's representative at Wednesday's finance committee meeting, Rob Teplitz, also warned against a lengthy postponement.

"We're committed to see this project through," Teplitz said. "I wouldn't want to delay for an indefinite period of time."

Lautenberg and Menendez, in urging the ramp's construction, said it would provide an important link to a network of bicycle and pedestrian paths being built in South Jersey and Southeastern Pennsylvania with $23 million in federal stimulus funds.