LOWER MERION — Lower Merion could soon give up its responsibility for a little-used street in Gladwyne.
During a public works committee meeting this week, the committee recommended that the full board of commissioners vote to vacate Bliss Street in Gladwyne during its next meeting later this month.
Bliss Street, which was formerly part of the same River Road that still runs through a section of Gladwyne, begins in West Conshohocken off Route 23. From Route 23, it runs behind a parking garage several hundred feet into Lower Merion, where it ends.
The modern Bliss Street was cut off from the rest of River Road sometime in the mid-20th century with the building of the Schuylkill Expressway.
The township plans to vacate the section of road from the West Conshohocken border to its endpoint, approximately 815 feet into Lower Merion.
To get to Bliss Street from Lower Merion, one must leave Lower Merion, drive a short distance on Conshohocken State Road, and then proceed behind an office building and parking garage.
Jesse Hunting, assistant director of public works for Lower Merion, said Bliss Street has been brought to the township’s attention on several occasions over the past few decades, mainly due to complaints of overgrowth and tidiness issues.
“Staff have determined that this section of the roadway provides no benefit or use to the township. If the section is to be vacated, the underlying land would revert to several properties on Woodmont Road,” Hunting said.
Commissioner Josh Grimes, who represents the area of Bliss Street where it is located, said vacating it would relieve a burden on the township.
“I had a chance to take a walk down there, and what has been said is accurate—the property, the street, kind of dead ends. And in fact, when I was there, there was some heavy equipment presumably belonging to one of the owners down there that was kind of in the in the way. But I understand from our public works director that each of the properties has access from Woodmont Road. So it isn’t like we would be foreclosing access to anyone. This is really taking a burden off the township of maintaining a piece of street that just seems to have no other use,” Grimes said.
Grimes also noted that neither the Gladwyne Civic Association nor he has heard any negative comments from anyone regarding the township’s decision to abandon Bliss Street.
Although it might be a bit unusual, this is not the first time Lower Merion has vacated an old unused roadbed in Gladwyne.
About three years ago, Lower Merion voted to vacate Old Monk Road. Old Monk Road was a street that branched off from the modern Monk Road but hadn’t been used for about six decades.
According to township officials, at the time they vacated Old Monk Road, the old roadbed went to the adjoining property owners.
“The Board of Commissioners of the Township of Lower Merion, on its own motion, finds that the street right-of-way of Old Monk Road can be vacated without detriment to the public interests because Old Monk Road has been and will remain a dead end street containing no municipal or public utility infrastructure and providing no access or required public street frontage to any abutting lot,” according to the township’s resolution on Old Monk Road.