Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Crosses planned for pedestrian bridge spark controversy
Bridge will span Lancaster Avenue and link new dormitories with main campus
RADNOR >> If built as designed, a Villanova University pedestrian bridge will not only cross Route 30 but be adorned with four decorative crosses at each of the far ends — a proposal that has some residents speaking out.
The bridge is planned as a part of the major construction project underway for new dormitories, a performing arts center, and garage and retail space planned on a 13-acre parking lot on the south side of Lancaster Avenue.
At the Jan. 11 Design Review Board John Cluver, architect for VU, said the design is “consistent” with what that board had previously approved, although the crosses were not shown in the earlier design. Instead just boxes with the word “cross” were in the plans.
Chris Kovolski, assistant vice president for government relations and external affairs, said the project is being built in phases and at that earlier meeting the bridge was not entirely designed yet. Cluver said several ornamental features were not yet designed at the time the board approved the earlier drawings.
On the north side of the road the crosses will be 10.5 feet from the right-of-way and 14-feet from the right-of-way on the south side, Cluver said. The arch of the bridge itself will include the school seal on both sides. The 4-foot, 7-inch high metal crosses will not be illuminated.
“What message does this ornament send to those who drive on Lancaster Avenue?” asked Roberta Winters, president of the Radnor League of Woman Voters. The world has changed since the days when public school students would start the day with a prayer, she said. She wondered if the crosses would send a “welcoming” message to motorists as they pass through Radnor.
“Symbols can bring both positive and negative connotations to individuals and groups,” said Winters. “Are there less ostentatious ways to reflect a Catholic institution?” Winters also wondered what precedent this would set in the township if approved.
Rick Leonardi, another resident, questioned whether taxpayers, through PennDOT, should be funding a bridge with religious symbols that are “a little ostentatious if not confrontational.”
Jane Galli, another resident, said the crosses “on top of 31-feet of pillars” will be very visible and are “a little big, a little excessive.” She also wondered if they might tempt people who are thinking about committing suicide.
Resident Sara Pilling said that a pedestrian bridge across Route
1 at St. Joseph’s University does not have religious symbols. Radnor is diverse, with Catholic and Protestant churches, and synagogues and an Islam Center nearby.
“Should only Christian symbols be represented?” she said.
Pilling suggested crosses in bas relief on the stone pillars of the bridge would be “much more appropriate and less offensive.”
The crosses are “totally inappropriate in today’s world,” said resident Bruce Gilbert.
Gilbert said he wondered if the township would approve a minaret, Star of David or onion dome on the bridge. “So why would you approve these?”
One woman spoke in favor of the crosses on the bridge, saying that Villanova is a Catholic University.
Another resident, Toni Bailey, said crosses are appropriate on the university’s campus, but believes the university should rethink having them on the “main thoroughfare.”
Nicholas Caniglia, a lawyer for Villanova, said that Villanova is a Catholic university and the crosses will not be in the right-of-way.
Design Review Board Member Wally Zimolong said that denying the design of the bridge because it features crosses or “religious iconography” could “open the township up to civil liability.”
Caniglia said that assessment was accurate and the township would be “subject to a lot of scrutiny if (it) denies it. The Radnor Code specifically exempts crosses and other religious symbols from zoning rules, Caniglia said.
“We’re talking about a religious symbol here, a symbol for a religious, Catholic university,” Caniglia said.
At the end, the Design Review Board recommended that the Board of Commissioners approve the bridge design but tabled the question of whether it should have the crosses until its Feb. 8 meeting.