A woman walks her dog along the levee trail in Forty Fort near the Wyoming Valley Airport in this file photo.
Times Leader file photo
We have long championed recreation trails — including the popular Wyoming Valley Levee trail — in this space. Properly maintained, they promote public physical and mental health, assure more vital green space in both urban and suburban areas, and improve our sense of community. The list of benefits is long; the list of any actual (as opposed to alleged) downsides is short.
Yet even casual users of the levee trail likely are aware of two glaring shortcomings.
The first and at least theoretically smaller one is a railroad crossing that those walking/biking from Kirby Park toward Edwardsville (or hoping to walk from Edwardsville to Kirby Park and beyond) have run into for years.
It has been a point of conflict — verbal and real-world — as railroad and government officials have tried to block people from crossing the tracks (for safety reasons), and vandals have tried to breach those blockades. Efforts are ongoing to resolve that situation and make the crossing both accessible and safe, and we continue to hope they succeed.
The other, more complicated spot has been getting from the trail in Kingston to the trail in Forty-Fort. While a connection theoretically exists, it’s really just a walk along roads and across intersections that can at times be very busy. We suspect few actually go through the hassle of traversing the “trail,” there, opting to turn around (regardless of whichever direction they were going) and head back the way they came.
Which is why Tuesday’s story about an evolving plan to address that mess felt heartening.
County Council is expected to vote Aug. 11 on accepting a $500,000 state grant earmarked for a project that would develop a safer trail connecting the two municipalities. County Community Planning and Economic Development Division Head Ted Ritsick called it a “golden opportunity” because PennDOT intends to build a road under the Cross Valley Expressway for construction equipment needed for expressway bridge repairs.
In theory, that roadway could become a permanent part of the trail, reducing user interaction with traffic. Ritsick said if the trail does not take advantage of the option, PennDOT would have to remove the roadway and return the area to its pre-construction state.
He also suggested making the temporary road a permanent part of the trail could provide additional access for levee maintenance for the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority, and said the authority board has already conditionally accepted limited operation and maintenance responsibility if the trail project is approved and completed.
We encourage council to undergo due diligence on this proposal, but it certainly sounds “like a no-brainer,” as Councilman Harry Haas said.
There are timing issues to be ironed out, as the PennDOT work isn’t expected to start any time soon. But on first blush, this certainly seems like a win-win solution to a long-standing and nigh-intractable problem with the levee trail.
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