(8th in a series of posts on Walkability and Bikeability)
“Tail on the Trail” challenge started last week. Are you in? Not too late.
Gadfly needs everybody in shape in case we have to march on City Hall or something.
Spring is coming.
Yeah, right.
Gadfly was trying to push the season yesterday and get some outside Tail miles in.
Was the fastest 70+ in a 5k “in support of People with Disabilities” in deliciously sunny but windswept and frigid Fogelsville. 
(Well, truth be told, he was the the ONLY 70+. All others were sensible of living till 80. And, more truth be told, he was 4th from last. Just in front of 3 strolling women of a certain age eagerly engaged in a really quite interesting conversation — sprinkled with biographical admissions and evidentiary anecdotes — about whether if they were dating now would they find the Bezos-Sanchez pictorial email interchange a matter of routine. Normal conversation for a “Cupid” race in which participants — Only in America! — wore shirts marked “available” and “unavailable.” The conversation actually helped keep Gadfly warm. )
Not Spring-y at all.
But he was thinking about Spring.
And realizing that he has let this thread go dark for about two weeks.
And so he went looking for several City studies done on walkability and bikeability.
Like the 2016 “Beth Connects: A Trail Study.”
Seemed beautifully done. Stem to stern. Soup to nuts.
Divides the Bethlehem trail system into eight easily identified geographical sections.
Take a look. Easy reading.
Because a pedestrian bridge has been in the news lately (funds for a feasibility study on the horizon), Gadfly was especially looking for info about a bridge.
See pps. 46-49 of the report itself.
I wondered where such a bridge would be.
Ok, possible bridge from the foot of Main St. at Sand Island over to Union Station area.
And, quite interestingly, possibly a bridge UNDER the Fahy Bridge.
Wheeee!
See as an example: Richmond: Belle Isle Pedestrian Bridge
http://www.rvariverfront.com/trails/belleisle.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THldCVllv7M
Has anything been done with this “Beth Connects” report? Does anybody know?
Gadfly has a vague recollection of news stories about the City with plans to purchase land to connect the east end of the Greenway with the Saucon Rail Trail.
Having worked in Academia, Gadfly is used to reports that collect dust. In fact, he wrote several of them.
Granted, all the Beth Connects recommendations have hefty price-tags.
But Gadfly hopes dust collecting is not happening here. Certainly looks like a lot of productive work was put into this study.
From Dana Grubb:
The reconstruction of the Fahy Bridge would have been the perfect opportunity to add a pedestrian bridge. That opportunity was missed and this photo of the Belle Island pedestrian bridge shows how it could have been accomplished.
Studies drawing dust? City Hall is loaded with them, at a great deal of cost to taxpayers!
Dana