Changing Skyline: Duck boats pose a threat to Schuylkill Banks

The most transformational project that Philadelphia built in the last decade wasn't a museum or a skyscraper, but the skinny, mile-long strip of plain asphalt that hugs the Schuylkill in Center City. On a crisp fall day, you can find runners from Penn, fishermen from Grays Ferry, and yoga devotees from Fitler Square jostled together on the 12-foot-wide recreation path, drawn by big-sky views of the sparkling river.

If Schuylkill Banks isn't an urban success story, I don't know what is.

That success is now under threat from two intrusions aimed at tourists, including a hasty plan that would allow a private company's amphibious duck boats to use the park to access the river.

Barely three months have passed since a Ride the Ducks tour boat's fatal collision on the Delaware River, yet the Nutter administration has already given the company a green light to dig a massive open-air trench through a glade at the north end of Schuylkill Banks, just off Martin Luther King Drive. The trench would slope under the trail to allow the duck boats to descend to the river.

Come spring, Ride the Ducks officials expect to start running 60 boatloads of quacking tourists through the park each day. The company is so confident of winning approval for its access road, the recording on its reservation line urges people to join in a "new sightseeing adventure on the Schuylkill" beginning March 5. Let's hope federal safety officials have determined the cause of the Delaware collision by then.

The second intrusion isn't as destructive as an invasion of duck boats, but it, too, would alter the park's easygoing ambience.

A group of private activists is promoting a plan for a giant water screen and fountains in the middle of the tidal river. Inspired by a Las Vegas attraction, the big sprays of water might be described as an ephemeral billboard, and would serve as a backdrop for video art and images of city attractions. The backers already have secured promises of $2 million in state money for the project, called Water Magic, and support letters from a half-dozen city leaders.

As dissimilar as the two projects are, each would profoundly change the character of the waterfront park, shifting it from a residential amenity to a tourist attraction with moneymaking potential.