Pedestrian bridge over Lancaster Avenue opens at Villanova University
Crosses at ends of space over the highway had caused an uproar
RADNOR » The new pedestrian bridge - complete with several large crosses – over Lancaster Avenue at Villanova University opened on Tuesday and students began to use it immediately.
The bridge includes four 4-foot, 7-inch tall crosses on pedestals, two on each end of the span over the road located on university property. The religious symbols had caused consternation at the design stage when some of the neighbors questioned whether religious icons should be placed on a $3.7 million bridge that spanned a public highway and was built with state funds. Controversy over the crosses reached a national audience as some talk radio commenters weighed in and a national atheist group sent a letter to PennDOT opposing to the project.
However, now that the crosses are in place, nearby residents appear to be mollified, especially because university officials turned the crosses from facing the highway to face pedestrians coming and going on the bridge.
“The four new crosses, located on the bridge spanning Lancaster Avenue and leading toward the church, are in scale and in good taste,” said resident Sara Pilling. “Their orientation, perpendicular to the traffic passing beneath them, provides a symbolic entrance up to Villanova’s gothic church. Well done.”
Another resident, Roberta Winters, agreed. “The positioning of the crosses on the bridge has made them less prominent to those traveling on Lancaster Avenue,” she said.
And Rick Leonardi, who serves on the township’s Villanova Project Communication & Review Committee, said, “while I still have concerns that their installation on a piece of publicly funded infrastructure violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment, I am encouraged that the crosses have been erected to face the community to whom they have the most significance.”
One Wednesday, Christopher Kovolski, assistant vice president for governmental relations and external affairs for Villanova, said the university turned the crosses from facing the road to facing the bridge for aesthetic reasons. After they saw the crosses up on the bridge, they then “matched the orientation of the crosses on the church and visually we thought that perspective was better. It creates a pretty powerful view as you’re walking in that direction.”
The Rev. Peter M. Donohue, the university president, spoke at the bridge opening at 11 a.m. Tuesday and blessed it, said Kovolski. The opening was moved up two hours in light of the weather.
Saying a blessing for the bridge is an important part of the university’s Catholic Augustinian mission and values, Kovolski said. Whenever a new building is opened on campus, it is blessed, Kovolski said. Donohue also prayed for the families of the victims and others affected in the March 15 collapse of a pedestrian bridge near Florida Atlantic University in Miami that killed six people.
“In light of what happened in Florida we wanted to remember and pray for the families and the community that were affected while we were also celebrating the opening of our own bridge,” said Kovolski.
Kovolski said that once the new bridge was opened, students immediately began walking across it as if it had always been there.
The “collegiate gothic” bridge design with the crosses and its stonework compliments older buildings on campus and also the new dormitories that are being constructed adjacent to it, said Kovolski. The development project, on the south side of Lancaster Avenue, also includes a new parking garage and performing arts center. The pedestrian bridge, which connects to a SEPTA station at its far end, is owned and maintained by the university.