Walkway

A group of Westtown residents will need the cooperation of a developer if they are to prevent the construction of a walkway behind their houses. The 34 residents, who live in the section of the South Hills development between South New Street and West Pleasant Grove Road, have been fighting since June to prevent the construction of a 5-foot-wide walkway in a 25-foot right of way behind houses on Dunvegan Road and John Anthony Drive. In a letter to township officials, solicitor Robert Adams said there "could be valid reasons to justify the modification of the plan.

LONDON - A Singapore investment company will build a $97 million half-mile walkway on the River Thames in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics, London Mayor Boris Johnson said Friday. He said the pontoon would enable pedestrians to stroll on the Thames from central London to the Tower of London, where the capital's financial district meets the storied East End. Detailed plans have not been submitted, but the walkway will include commercial attractions such as exhibitions, rented event space, and vendors.

It looked like a simple plan. Benjamin Obdyke Inc. on Wednesday night went before the Warminster Township Zoning Hearing Board seeking a variance to build an enclosed walkway between its existing 100,000-square-foot building in the John Fitch Industrial Park at Steamboat Drive and Jacksonville Road, and a proposed 66,863-square-foot warehouse 80 feet away. But the walkway would cross a property line, allowing it to encroach upon the 25-foot sideyard requirement. After being reassured that the walkway would be dismantled if either property ever changed hands, the board voted 3-0 to grant the variance.

The pedestrian walkway that collapsed at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., was built with material contaminated with calcium chloride, which corroded the steel beams, investigators said yesterday. The testing lab hired by the speedway to investigate Saturday's collapse found high levels of calcium chloride in the concrete slabs on the 320-footlong bridge, said Charles Manning, of Accident Reconstruction Analysts in Raleigh. Saturday night, an 80-foot section collapsed, spilling fans leaving the raceway onto U.S. 29 about 17 feet below.

Residents of the New South Hills development have told the Westtown Township Board of Supervisors that they would rather do their strolling in the street than on a proposed walkway behind their houses. A five-foot-wide walkway that would be in a 25-foot-wide right-of-way running behind the houses was included in the plan for the 27-house development, east of South New Street and south of Pleasant Grove Road, when it was approved more than 15 months ago. Twenty-three New South Hills residents came to the supervisors' meeting Monday to tell the board they were against the walkway's construction, and 34 residents signed a petition protesting the walkway.

In an effort to improve pedestrian safety around Chester County Hospital, the West Goshen Board of Supervisors will ask hospital officials to consider building a walkway over or under East Marshall Street. The supervisors decided Tuesday night to write to the hospital in response to a letter from Laurence M. Weinberg, a doctor at the hospital. In his letter, Weinberg asked the township to paint lines indicating a crosswalk between the hospital and a professional office center across East Marshall Street.

Residents of the "new" South Hills development can now do their strolling on a specially built walkway instead of in the street. The Westtown Township Board of Supervisors has officially accepted the dedication of a walkway behind a section of the South Hills development three years after the development's approval. The supervisors voted 3-0 Monday to approve the 5-foot-wide, wood chip- covered walkway, which was constructed in a 25-foot right-of-way behind the 27 houses on Dunvegan Road and John Anthony Drive.

Someone in Brooklawn is giving new meaning to the word tacky. And the residents of the borough are not pleased. "It has come to my attention that someone is spreading tacks, hundreds oftacks, on the crosswalk behind the railroad, where kids ride bikes," aresident, Ed Clark, said during a Borough Council meeting on Dec. 8. "What'sgoing on?" A lot of flat tires, for one thing. "One kid got three or four flats, and several others had flats also," saidPolice Chief John Reader in an interview.

A 23-year-old woman who tried to jump from an elevated walkway just off Head House Square early this morning was impaled on a pair of 15-inch iron spikes on a wall below, and had to be cut free by rescue crews, authorities said. The woman, whose identity police had not confirmed this morning, was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with one of the spikes still imbedded in her abdomen, authorities said. She was undergoing emergency surgery early this morning. According to Fire Battalion Chief Mike Kucowski, the woman became impaled when she jumped about 10 feet from an elevated deck at the rear of the Abbotts Square parking complex at Second and Lombard Streets about 12:30 a.m. She landed on half-inch-thick reinforcement spikes protruding from the top of a concrete wall.

State transportation officials who declined to fund a new pedestrian walkway over Route 38 in Cherry Hill cannot be held responsible for a 2003 accident that killed a boy and injured his younger brother, a state appellate court has ruled. The boys' mother claimed officials were negligent for not rebuilding the walkway after a garbage truck brought it down in 1999. In their ruling, the judges found the defendants had legal immunity, and also said that, in running across the busy six-lane highway, the 12- and 13-year-old boys were responsible for the accident.

Advocates for bicyclists and pedestrians have launched a last-minute effort to restore funding for a proposed ramp to the Ben Franklin Bridge walkway. Plans for a $3.2 million ramp on the Camden side of the bridge were not included in the 2012 capital budget approved Wednesday by the Delaware River Port Authority finance committee. The full DRPA board will vote on the budget Wednesday. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia on Friday asked the DRPA board to restore the money and launched an online petition drive to gather signatures of supporters of the ramp.

For Labor Day weekend, my wife and I agreed it was time to get out of town. We needed to see different zip codes, to slip the surly confines of Center City Philadelphia, to give our spirits a lift. So we traded one big town for another and went to New York for the day. In the past, we'd see a show for half-price, but this time we set our sights on bigger things. One thing that has always captured my imagination is the Brooklyn Bridge, with its sturdy stone towers made almost spiritual by the beautiful Gothic arches and spiderweb of cables and suspenders.

Being a pedestrian in Philadelphia can sometimes feel like being a moving duck in one of those carnival shooting games. Now, the new fencing around Dilworth Plaza takes the urban competition among bicycles, cars, and walkers to a new level. The city surrounded the plaza outside City Hall last Wednesday morning to prepare for a $50 million renovation there and to prevent Occupy Philadelphia protesters from returning. The barriers go right up to the street, leaving no place for people to walk around half of City Hall.

SYDNEY, Australia - We stood at the center of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a breezy, sunny day. Down below us, ferries cut through the turquoise water as they carried passengers to hidden coves shaded by palm trees. White sails of pleasure craft swelled in the wind, mimicking the roofline of the famous Opera House as they passed by. The view was stunning - and it was free. Sydney can be an expensive place for Americans. The combination of a major world capital with an unfavorable exchange rate makes touring the city a daunting prospect.

No wonder the 19th-century American painters who would call themselves the Hudson River School were so taken with this place of lovely vistas - a mighty river, waterfalls, tree-covered mountains. The Hudson River Valley is a three-hour-plus drive from the Philadelphia area, and it offers a variety of tourist destinations. On a recent visit, I experienced the Walkway Over the Hudson. Originally a 19th-century railroad bridge, one of the megastars of the Industrial Age, it was restored and converted two years ago into a pedestrian walkway, a 1.28-mile span from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to Highland (there are approaches from each end)

A Blackwood man has been arrested in the sexual assaulting of a jogger on the Ben Franklin Bridge on Monday, and could be charged in another incident involving a bridge pedestrian, according to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Joseph Haskins, 47, of Blackwood, was apprehended by Delaware River Port Authority police Wednesday after he allegedly groped a second woman. Monday's attack occurred about 4:30 p.m. as the woman ran on the walkway, which is above the span's roadway, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

LONDON - A Singapore investment company will build a $97 million half-mile walkway on the River Thames in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics, London Mayor Boris Johnson said Friday. He said the pontoon would enable pedestrians to stroll on the Thames from central London to the Tower of London, where the capital's financial district meets the storied East End. Detailed plans have not been submitted, but the walkway will include commercial attractions such as exhibitions, rented event space, and vendors.

She was eight months pregnant, a single mother who lived in a small, well-kept house with her parents and 5-year-old son, where religious statues decorate the shaded yard and her son's red and blue bicycle, still with its training wheels on, sits on the porch. Some days, she would sit on her back steps blowing bubbles with her son or clapping along as he splashed in a plastic kiddie pool. Petite and pretty, with big brown eyes and a wide smile, she was excited to be a mother again, her neighbors said.