Thursday, March 04, 2010

Bridge to Ridge Trail Reconstruction Begins This Spring

With all the necessary permits in place and the contract soon going out to bid the reconstruction of the Schuylkill River Trail from the Falls Bridge to Ridge Avenue will begin later this Spring (May-June timeframe). The project is expected to take about 5 months and will be concurrent with the massive Gustine Lake Interchange (City Ave/Ridge Av/Lincoln Dr) project.

Plans are to repair and widen the narrow sidewalk trail to a 10' wide permeable asphalt path. A retaining wall will be built where the path meets up against a steep slope. The work will end at the intersection of Ridge Avenue and Kelly Drive. The upcoming Wissahickon Gateway project, will be looking at alternatives to carrying the trail over the Wissahickon Creek via the Ridge Avenue sidewalk.

A on-street detour plan is being drawn up that will use Calumet Street and Ridge Avenue. The details of this plan will be made available once it is finalized.



View GREAT PA/NJ Projects in a larger map

2 comments:

Andrew J. Besold said...

Beyond the truely modest trail improvements (but greatly needed and appreciated), I still don't see the proposed Gustine Lake Interchange work as an improvement. This is a grotesquely inappropriate high-speed freeway interchange plopped dab smack in the middle of Fairmount Park!

The only solution to me would be to destroy the whole damned thing and return it to the park! There's a reason why its called Gustine Lake Interchange. Before the interchange there was a lake there!
http://www.fairmountpark.org/HistoryPart1.asp

Unknown said...

Want to cut out the interchange and put the upper deck planned for the East Falls Bridge in place, 115 years after the fact?

Cool.

The Library of Congress has the plans:

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/pa/pa0800/pa0840/photos/131343pv.jpg