Those of you who spend your time looking at maps of highways in Delaware County have likely noticed a weird bow in the route of I-476, commonly called the Blue Route. For those who do not, I will quickly summarize. I-476 runs roughly North-South connecting I-95 in Chester to I-81 near Scranton. The highway bends around Swarthmore’s property on the western side of the Crum Creek, cutting through Wallingford. This bend may seem only natural, given that a straight route would cut right through Swarthmore’s campus, but this decision to avoid Swarthmore was the byproduct of hard lobbying by Swarthmore College president Courtney Smith (1953-69), the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), and Swarthmore borough residents. The story of Swarthmore’s work to redirect an entire highway reveals key insights into the development of the American highway network in the mid-20th century and where Swarthmore stood on this key precipice.
Plans to extend a highway connecting the northern and southern parts of Delaware County emerged in the 1920s from the Regional Planning Federation of the Philadelphia Tri-State District, but were eventually put on hold during the Great Depression and the Second World War. It was the increase of car-dependent suburbs in the greater Philadelphia area and Eisenhower’s national highway development plan that saw the reopening of blueprints to build a new expressway in Delaware County. Per the Philadelphia Encyclopedia: “The road’s prospects seemed to increase with passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which promised federal funds for up to ninety percent of its costs. The Highway Act transferred responsibility for the expressway to the Pennsylvania Department of Highways (PDH).” The PDH developed three or four possible routes for a highway to take, depending on how you count them. These routes, shown in this graphic from the Philadelphia Inquirer, would all involve disrupting local communities, with the Green Route wrapping around west of Media, the Blue Route cutting through Swarthmore, and the Red and Yellow Routes cutting through Rutledge. The Blue Route was the second most expensive route, costing 34 million dollars, but it also destroyed the least number of houses: only 165. Why then did Swarthmore oppose it so vehemently as a disruption to their campus and the local community?
The Blue Route destroyed the least number of homes by running through the relatively undeveloped valley surrounding the Crum Creek. According to a report compiled by the college, the highway would be between 190’ and 300’ in width and cut into hills, fill into valleys, and cross over the Crum Creek twice. Swarthmore defends its right to not have this highway on the western side of its campus for three seemingly contradictory reasons. The report claims that Swarthmore represents a community asset, alongside the homes, churches, industries, and schools that stood in the way of the Blue Route. The report then argues that the disruption of these community assets in order to build a different community asset, a highway, is an incorrect value judgment as the benefit offered by the highway does not outweigh the damage done. Swarthmore particularly emphasized the importance of the Crum Creek for recreation by community members and its role as a key part of Swarthmore’s teaching instruction. “[The college] maintains for the public without cost to it one of the last significant open green spaces in Delaware County.” This evaluation is largely correct; when one looks at a local map, the Crum Woods are clearly the largest local green space.
Swarthmore then contradicts itself by arguing the college needs the land on the other side for its continual growth. The college then publishes a table of its growth since its founding in 1861 by enrollment and number of buildings. It follows this table by claiming “[The college] has not moved since 1864, and expects to be here in 1964, 2064, 2164, and for all time.” Whether that will prove true, we can at least hope the college will survive until its bicentennial. The logical conclusion of these two statements is that Swarthmore will continue growing in the 21st and 22nd centuries. Interestingly, if we assume Swarthmore’s growth is exponential and use the growth from 1864 to 1961 as our model, the college should have an enrollment of 4,582.5 students by 2024. Our current enrollment of 1,644 is a bit short, but we also do not have enough housing for all those students, as the housing shortage every spring makes apparent. Luckily, Courtney Smith and the college account for that by demonstrating that Swarthmore has grown from one building in 1864 to 91 buildings in 1961. If we also assume that the number of buildings at Swarthmore grows at an exponential rate, then by 2064, we should have 8,190 buildings; almost two for every one student. Where, you might ask yourself, should Swarthmore put all 8,100 of these buildings? Well, the college accounted for that by announcing it will expand to the western side of the Crum Creek. If you are not currently staring at a map, Swarthmore’s campus sits east of the Crum, with the western side being undeveloped, but owned by the college. The college argued that the Blue Route should not cut through the Crum Woods because they plan to use that for future expansion. Which way is it Swarthmore? Are the Crum Woods going to remain undeveloped to provide a community asset in the form of the largest green space in Delaware County or is Swarthmore going to utilize the Crum Woods for its endless growth to house its 21,545.79 students by 2164?
In order to halt the construction of the Blue Route through Swarthmore’s campus, Courtney Smith appealed to the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) to help. Presidents of colleges across the country wrote letters to then-governor of Pennsylvania, David L. Lawrence, including the presidents of Columbia University, Amherst College, American University, Bates College (go Maine!), and Brown University. In June of 1960, the PDH chose a different route for the Blue Route, but Courtney Smith and the college continued to refuse to endorse it. The groups fighting against the Blue Route represented the middle-class and wealthy residents of Delaware County who believed it would cause declining property values, raise taxes, increase crime, and ruin the Crum Creek Valley. They eventually formed the Citizens Council of Delaware County to oppose the Blue Route and numerous community meetings occurred to decide the eventual route of the highways. Business and working-class communities in Delaware County hoped it would aid Chester’s declining industries and provide jobs.
In June of 1963, a revised plan for the highway was approved, with money set aside to help Swarthmore College acquire new land to offset the land lost to the highway. In 1966, the project began with the first ground being broken, but delays hindered the work and, by 1970, less than 10% of the Blue Route had been completed with the cost already skyrocketing to 173 million dollars as compared to the original cost of 34 million dollars. In 1980, a task force was established by U.S. Representative Robert Edgard of Philadelphia to save or at least salvage the highway. Two lawsuits were filed by municipalities, and those lawsuits made their way to the Supreme Court, which decided in 1986 to allow construction to proceed. In 1991, the Blue Route finally opened after costing 750 million dollars, a cost of over 2,100% of the original planned expense. Swarthmore’s fight to maintain the contiguity of its campus undoubtedly played a role in these delays and increased expenses, and as we walk around our pristine and green campus (did you know Swarthmore is an arboretum?) I ask you to imagine, if you can, what it would be like if we were disrupted by daily traffic and construction noises. What an unrealistic and humorous hypothetical.
