Easton, Pennsylvania, once a city of manufacturing, is now a manufactured city. At least in respect to its vaunted, economic upturn. Departing mayor Tom Goldsmith assisted by area newspapers takes credit for finally turning Easton around. Some are prospering but most residents are seeing services decline, the infrastructure rot and taxes and fees go up and up. Only a few bask in the warm glow of prosperity.

A press release from Governor Ed Rendell's office dated last Friday, April 25, 2003, sustains this fiction. The release was political payback to Goldsmith, who left the Republican Party in support of Rendell's successful gubernatorial campaign. The release has enabled Goldsmith, in his waning days as Easton's mayor, to claim credit for a project that eluded him during his 12 years as mayor: the reclamation of the once-proud Hotel Easton.

The hoax perpetrated on the public is that a new $8 million parking deck is required to house an "inter-modal" (new-speak for a bus station). Or, in the words of Rendell's press release, "a crucial passageway between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and adjacent to the Hotel Easton," (italics ours).

This announcement should alarm Downtown Easton merchants: A new Pennsylvania Governor and a departing City of Easton Mayor will accommodate New Jersey and Phillipsburg with an $8 million facility in which tourists would park their cars, then walk across the Free Bridge a short distance to the Transportation Museum that New Jersey's Governor McGreevey plans to erect in Phillipsburg. One casualty - the building at the corner of Northampton Street and Larry Holmes Drive, one of Easton's most prominent landmarks, will be demolished because Phillipsburg's South Main Street lacks the space for a large parking deck.

Another concern for Downtown Easton merchants - The garage's construction will disrupt business for months, like the yearlong disruption caused by the construction of Two Rivers Landing in the southwest quadrant of Center Square.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey motorists who frequently use the Route 22 toll bridge, upstream of the Delaware River from the Free Bridge, should also be concerned. The current governors of both states have a private agreement, dating back to the governorships of Tom Ridge and Christy Whitman. Tolls collected by the Delaware River Basin Joint Toll Bridge Commission (that's the DRBJTBC on the signs by the toll booths), are to be diverted to the economic development of the eastern end of Northampton Street in Easton and of Phillipsburg's South Main Street. Will not frequent toll increases be needed to feed this ill-defined project?

More concerns relevant to a parking deck and inter-modal next to the former Hotel Easton…

1. Two blocks of public streets, South Green and Pine, will be lost to public use. They are now blocked illegally.
2. Kaplan's Awnings and two adjacent buildings will be demolished, with the consequent revenue derived from three taxable properties supplanted by a tax-exempt, Easton Parking Authority-owned garage.
3. By virtue of the fact that Downtown Easton is officially designated a National Historic District, a protracted review of the architectural and construction plan will have to be undertaken by the US Department of Interior, the National Park Service, and Pennsylvania's Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg, as required by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1961.
4. Location of the garage and inter-modal in the 100-year flood plain will necessitate protracted review of and approval by FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency), by Pennsylvania's DEP, by Northampton County for compliance with its Comprehensive Plan, and by the City of Easton's Planning Commission and Zoning Hearing Board.
5. FEMA flood-plain insurance will be required with premiums 25 percent higher than regular insurance because of increased property damage, and even loss of life, from the elevated risk of floods.
6. With the disappearance of South Green Street and a block of Pine Street, automotive access between the 100 block of Northampton Street and a block of South Second Street will be lost. The businesses on South Second such as Aura will be accessible only via the circuitous route of Larry Holmes Drive from the intersection of Northampton Street, South Third Street north, and Ferry Street east to South Second Street.
7. The project will be in violation of the Zoning Hearing Board decision of May 19, 1997, in the variance sought by Schy-Rhys Redevelopment, ruling that Easton's existing public parking facility could not be used to satisfy the off-street parking requirements of Easton's zoning ordinance.

The inter-modal and garage might already be built except that, fortuitously, Goldsmith in his haste to complete his legacy and accommodate his partners Koehler and Kheel rejected the offer of Federal financing for the inter-modal in 1997.