Bucks County State Senate Districts
Lynn Bush 132 Spruce Street Doylestown, PA 18901 To the Legislative Reapportionment Commission: I am writing to support a reapportionment map for the PA State Senate districts in Bucks County that is based on the three distinct parts of Bucks County, known at Lower Bucks, Central Bucks, and Upper Bucks. My knowledge of Bucks County, its municipalities, and the characteristics of distinct parts of the county was gained from my work with local and county governments for 35 years. I am a community planner, working for public agencies and nonprofits in the areas of land use, transportation, open space preservation, community development, economic development, housing, and community facilities. I was executive director of the Bucks County Planning Commission for 18 years, where I worked with our 54 townships and boroughs, and with local, county, and state elected officials on all the issues that people care about in our communities, from waste collection and traffic to farmland preservation and neighborhood playgrounds. These issues, needs, and priorities are distinctly different in the three parts of the county: they each require fair representation in the PA Senate. The Bucks County Planning Commission, formed in 1954, has always based its planning analysis and community priorities on the three regions of the county, as shown on the attached map from the Bucks County Comprehensive Plan (2011). The Planning Commission has drawn many contrasts and comparisons for the three areas. Just as an example from the County Comprehensive Plan shows how the three areas have differed in their development trends: Percent increase in population from 1990 to 2000 and 2000 to 2010: Upper Bucks 9.1% 9.9% Central Bucks 21.6% 8.1% Lower Bucks 3.0% -0.1% � I understand that these divisions, developed for planning purposes, cannot be replicated for the purpose of the Senatorial district reapportionment, due to the imbalance of population. The basic concept, however, of separating the lower, more densely developed and economically linked areas, from the suburban-type areas of Central Bucks and the distinctly rural Upper Bucks area, makes sense. Lower Bucks grew rapidly during the 1950s and 1960s, with Levittown’s 17,500 new homes, and the building of the U.S. Steel Fairless Works. It developed as an industrial center, with a roadway system to support the dense development, shopping centers, and industries. It is adjacent to Philadelphia. Central Bucks has no large industries, and its population is engaged in professional and service professions largely in Bucks County. Housing density is much lower, there are many preserved farms, and there is a history of arts and culture that is the basis for strong tourism. Upper Bucks County is rural, with land use characteristics such as topography, soils, and natural features that will keep development pressures low. Public water and wastewater is much more uncommon. Small towns have emerged as centers, with the surrounding countryside devoted to farms and forested stream corridors and rolling hills. Residents of Upper Bucks County relate more to the Lehigh Valley than to Doylestown or Philadelphia. Many people work in the booming Lehigh Valley. Some township officials from the northernmost township (Springfield) have been known to commute by bicycle to work at Lehigh University. The current Senate map, instead of reflecting the natural division of three areas running from west to east across the County, divides the county down its length. It divides the eastern part of lower Bucks County from the western part of lower Bucks County. It divides Levittown, a cohesive, identifiable neighborhood, in half — unnecessarily. The point is that these across-the-county east-west divisions have been the traditional bases for the county to define community differences, analyze community needs, plan and fund needed community facilities, and plan transportation improvement projects. State senators who represent Bucks County need to be able to understand and to support the needs of their communities. While I am sure that our current Senators are up to the challenge of representing different parts of the county that are an hour and 15 minutes’ drive away and that have vastly different needs and concerns, it makes more sense for constituents to have a representative who lives in their area and who understands the everyday needs of their community. I have reviewed the Fair Districts PA map (below) proposed for the Senatorial Districts and support the approach this map represents because it reflects the very real and traditionally-defined segments of Bucks County, keeps neighborhoods together, results in manageably compact districts, connects Upper Bucks County to the Lehigh Valley, and makes representation of the constituents more effective and efficient.