Case Name: In re Road in Shaler Township
Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1897-07-23
Citations: 5 Pa. Super. 270
Docket Number: Appeal, No. 111
Parties: In re Road in Shaler Township.
Judges: Before Rice, P. J., Willard, Wick-ham, Beaver, Reeder, Orlady and Smith, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports
Volume: 5
Pages: 270–272

Head Matter:
In re Road in Shaler Township.
Road law — Sufficiency of petition to vacate portion of road.
A petition for vacation of a public road as laid out, sets forth, sufficient to justify the court in taking action when it explicitly alleges, that the road is inconvenient, impracticable, expensive and difficult to open'and burdensome and expensive to maintain, assigning particularly the reasons sustaining such allegations. An objection that the vacation of the portion of the road asked for, will result in a cul do sac is untenable, when it appears the road, as changed by the viewers, ends at a plan of lots- having streets dedicated to public use and connecting with the original destination through other streets.
Argued April 27, 1897.
Appeal, No. 111, April T., 1897, by James A. Gaytons et al., from decree of Q. S. Allegheny Co., June Sess., 1895, No. 2, dismissing exceptions to report of viewers and confirming same.
Before Rice, P. J., Willard, Wick-ham, Beaver, Reeder, Orlady and Smith, JJ.
Affirmed.
Petition to change or vacate the whole or part of a public road in Shaler township.
The petition haying been made to change or vacate a part of the public road and viewers and reviewers having been appointed reporting in favor of the prayer of the petition, exceptions to the reports of the viewers and reviewers were dismissed and the reports were confirmed.
¡Errors assigned among others were (1) that the petition for the vacation of the road does not set forth facts sufficient to justify the court in taking action thereon; (2) that the road as originally laid out, connecting two other public roads, will, when partially vacated in accordance with the report of the viewers, become a cul de sac, one end thereof terminating at or on private property.
N. W. Shafer, for appellants.
The court will hesitate to confirm the vacation of a part of a public road which thereby makes the remainder a private road: Road in Madison, 6 Law Times (N. S.), 233; s. c. 2 Lancaster, 35.
The vacation of a portion of a road unopened will be set aside if its confirmation would leave the road as opened terminating on private lands : Road in Roaring Brook, 1 Wilcox, 263; In re Singletown Road, 1 Pearson, 59.
The court will not confirm a report which shows the vacation of part of a public road and leaves a part of it open for private accommodation: West Goshen Road, 7 C. C. 250.
The court will not approve a report vacating a public road which is the terminus of another public road: Road in Upper Hanover, 5 Mont. 174.
D. M. Miller, for appellee.
July 23, 1897:

Opinion:
Opinion by
Wickham, J.,
The assignments of error in tins case complain of the following matters; first, that the petition for the vacation of the road does not set forth facts sufficient to justify the court in taking action thereon; and second,.that whereas the road, as originally laid out, connected two other public roads it will, when partially vacated in accordance with the report of the viewers, become a cul de sac, one end thereof terminating at or on private property.
As to. the first objection, the petition for vacation describes the road, (which was laid out by order of the court of quarter sessions in 1894,) by number and term; courses, distances, etc., states that it had been partly opened and avers that a portion thereof which is particularly described, " is inconvenient, impracticable, expensive and difficult to open, and would be burdensome and expensive to maintain should the same be opened. The said unopened portion in traversing a distance along its own route, of less than one half mile, makes five right angles in its course, runs through a swamp, and at points is steep, thereby greatly increasing its length and making it inconvenient, impracticable and difficult to open, and burdensome and expensive to maintain. That if a public road be necessary between said Allegheny .and Butler plank road from a point near or opposite Undercliff station and the public road known as the Butler pike, at or near the public schoolhouse, there is a shorter, more direct, convenient and practicable route and one easier opened and less burdensome and expensive to maintain." We fail to see what more was necessary to be said on the subject.
The second objection is equally untenable. The road, as changed by the viewers, ends at a plan of lots having streets and alleys dedicated to public use, and connects with Butler street in the plan. Thence, it passes along and over Butler and other streets to the Butler pike, which is the highway reached by the vacated part of the road.
Decree affirmed at costs of appellants.