OIL CITY, Pa. (EYT) – The possibility of the four-lane section of Route 8 in Venango County becoming two lanes was a major topic of discussion at Thursday’s Oil City Council meeting.

It would be hard to find many in the county who believe it’s a good idea, and there weren’t any standing up to say so at the meeting.

Council member Dale Massie said it would be bad for the entire area.

“It wouldn’t encourage manufacturers to come here. This area has taken enough of a hit; we don’t need more,” Massie said.

State Rep. Lee James stressed how important those four lanes are to the Oil City region.

“I’m a little discouraged to hear it’s not off the table, but I’m encouraged to hear you understand the reasons it should stay four lanes,” James said to Tom McClelland, a design services engineer for PennDOT, who was there to discuss the reasons the state is considering the move.

McClelland said that to pave the 10-12 mile section of Route 8 between Georgetown Road and the Polk cutoff and do two bridge replacements in the section would cost $30 to $40 million.

“That’s not chump change. It’d be one of the biggest projects we’d do in the district,” McClelland said. “No decisions have been made, but does converting to two lanes make sense?

“That section of road sees 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles a day,” McClelland said. “Route 257 is seeing 10,000 vehicles a day.”

McClelland said he’s already been hearing from a few stakeholders how important having the four lanes is to the area, and there are plans to interview others in the area, including school districts, the airport, police, fire departments, business owners and other stakeholders.

“We know it’s safer to have four lanes, there are very few head-on crashes in that section; it’s good for tourism, and it makes a good emergency detour when something on I-80,” McClelland said.

He said there would be two more public meetings about it. One will be in September or October to hear more from the public and another one later once a decision is made.

Street paving planned

Council also approved awarding a bid to East Coast Paving and Sealcoating, Inc., of New Castle, for $294,903.68 to pave several city streets.

Council was pleased to get the bid, as it was more than $100,000.00 lower than what it budgeted for paving in 2017.

City manager Mark Schroyer said East Coast did the city’s paving a year ago.

“It was excellent; we were happy to see they had the low bid,” Schroyer said.

A section of Maple Avenue, Greenfill Court, sections of Oak Grove Street, Deer Street, and Traction Street were slated for paving. Also, spot repairs will be done on Colbert Avenue and North Seneca and the upper end of Central Street will be repaired.

Oil City Arts Council

The Arts Council is celebrating its 25th anniversary. There are plans to transfer the Arts Revitalization/Artist Relocation function and the brand “ARTS Oil City” to the Main Street Program.

For city Mayor Barb Davison Crudo and Main Street Program manager Kathy Bailey both spoke passionately of how the arts have brought nearly 45 artists to the city who have bought homes and made paintings, jewelry, ceramics, glassware and other things that people buy.

Crudo hopes that the city does a slow phaseout of the money that it has given to the Council annually.

“We know times are tough, but it’s been a small investment on a big return over the years,” Crudo said.

Bailey said she wants to see the momentum continue for Oil City as an art community.

“We want to see that continue — help reverse some of the negative things that are going on around here,” Bailey said.

Schroyer said the city currently contributes $45,000.00 to the Arts program and $10,000.00 to the Main Street Program.

“Do we want to keep it there?” he asked. “It’s going to go through another tough budget.”