With sunny days comes the traditional rise in pedestrian, bike,
and other traffic to the Schuylkill River Trail. The trail is a paved recreational path that
runs from an access point at Locust Street and extends out of the city in
Manayunk. The trail offers scenic views
of the city skyline, Art Museum, and Schuylkill River. On other blogs and sites such as Reddit, you
don’t have to search long to find various debates about what groups use the
trailer properly and which don’t. Those
with small children chaste cyclists for speeding through the heavily trafficked
Art Museum and Boat House Row portions of the trail at speeds of 20mph and
more. The bikers are quick to rant about
the inability of parents to keep their children from running unpredictably across
the path. Runners mostly get a pass
because they stick to a predictable path and don’t typically block the trail by
traveling in large groups.
Last year,
surreys (sometimes called quadricycles) became available for rental thanks to a
partnership between the Philly parks department and Wheels Fun, a national
franchise that leases the surreys. I
think the introduction of the surreys to the trail raised serious safety
questions from day one. It’s not unusual
to see children, too young to understand right of ways or the dangers inherent
in cutting off a rapidly approaching cyclist, swerve unpredictably after a
parent lets them take over the driving privileges. I’ve also seen adults operate the “vehicles”
with little regard for those around them.
The surreys are large, as they are capable of seating four across two
rows, and weigh anywhere from five to ten times the average weight of a bicycle
when operated. While they only travel at
slow speeds, a cyclist colliding with a surrey or a child who is struck by one
could be seriously injured. Fortunately,
I haven’t seen a serious accident during my time out on the trail.
Last week,
the city opened a new skate park just east of the Art Museum that is accessed
in part from the trail. The park brings
hundreds of skateboarders to an area already heavily utilized by the aforementioned
bikers, runners, roller skaters, and surrey renters. Because the skate park is situated at the
top of a hill, skaters can frequently achieve moderate speeds as they exit the
park.
Surveying
the scene while running this weekend I witnessed several cluster-eff
moments. One sticks out more than the
others. A twenty-something male with his
presumed girlfriend or spouse was driving a surrey west along the boathouses. As he traveled, he began to stand up on to
the pedals so as to exert a greater force and achieve more speed. Losing his balance, he grabbed on to the
wheel to gain support. This caused him
to turn the wheel sharply to the right, veering off the path and on to the dirt
that ran along the path. In order to
correct himself, he veered to the other direction sending the surrey across his
natural lane of travel on the path, and in to opposing traffic. A cyclist traveling at an otherwise safe
speed from the opposite direction was forced to rapidly shift off the trail,
and on to the grass running parallel to the lane he was traveling in. The cyclist was able to reenter the paved
portion of the trail, once the surrey passed him. Just imagine if the cyclist didn’t have the
free patch of grass, to avoid the out of control surrey. If there were kids standing in the grassy
area that he was able to avoid the surrey in, the situation could have ended in
tears.
I think
this summer we’ll see a breaking point where park officials wise up to the fact
that the trail, in many portions only fifteen feet wide, is unsuited for the numbers
of people utilizing it for the array of activities that they are.
A quick fix
would be to relocate the station that leases the surreys to West River Drive on
the other side of the river, and limit the surrey rentals to use on the Sundays
that West River Drive is closed from April to October. The surreys are a novelty. I doubt there’s anyone who uses the
Schuylkill Trail to ride a surrey, as they do to run, bike, or skate. Confining their use to a closed off city
street so that the other groups can navigate a less chaotic path on the other side
of the river makes sense. Besides, I
doubt “surrey money” is going to keep an otherwise closing school open.
well said.. here's some links to videos from this season illustrating your points. cheers, -a
ReplyDeleteOut of bounds surrey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcNRVjMhFyQ
Paine Park hazards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE7_RI0hPvI
Adult supervision or lack thereof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcwz5Fp68NQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjHpS2ogfyI