Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Towering 80 feet above the Schuylkill<\/a> and shaped by its colossal concrete arches, the Manayunk<\/a> Bridge is a key connector in the region\u2019s trail system and a link between Philadelphia and its suburban neighbor, Lower Merion<\/a> Township. <\/p>\n While the trail is beloved by city dwellers and suburbanites alike, a mid-trail traffic pattern switch for bikers and pedestrians has confused some users and prompted one reader to write in, asking The Inquirer to investigate. According to city and township officials, the traffic flow switch-up midway across the bridge is no accident.<\/p>\n The Manayunk Bridge connects the 80-plus mile Schuylkill River Trail with the Cynwyd Heritage Trail, a 2-mile multiuse path that runs along an unused segment of SEPTA<\/a> tracks in Lower Merion. Much of the trail was once SEPTA\u2019s Ivy Ridge line, which connected Philadelphia with Manayunk via Bala Cynwyd<\/a>, but was truncated in the 1980s due to poor track conditions. The trail\u2019s completion in 2011<\/a>, and extension in recent years, has marked a major transformation for the previously underutilized corridor of Bala Cynwyd. <\/p>\n Penn Valley<\/a> resident J.J. Cutuli enjoys running and biking with his kids on the Cynwyd Trail. <\/p>\n \u201cWe really love the pedestrian bridge. We really love the trail,\u201d Cutuli said. <\/p>\n But halfway across the Manayunk Bridge, \u201cthere\u2019s this curious little thing that happens,\u201d Cutuli said. The trail\u2019s traffic pattern switches. The bicyclist side becomes the pedestrian side, and vice versa. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m kind of a rule-follower. One of my kids is a rule-follower, and he asked me that question. He was like, \u2018What side should I be on? Should I be on this side? Should I be on that side? What are the rules of the road?\u2019\u201d Cutuli said. <\/p>\n Unable to summon an answer himself, Cutuli wrote into Curious Lower Merion<\/a>, The Inquirer\u2019s forum for answering questions about the Lower Merion<\/a> community. <\/p>\n Chris Leswing, Lower Merion\u2019s director of building and planning, said the traffic pattern switch was a deliberate choice to slow bikers traversing the downward slope from Lower Merion to Manayunk. <\/p>\n It\u2019s \u201ceasy to speed through areas where people may linger and watch the river\u201d and the \u201cidea was that bikers would need to be aware of the pavement markings to check their speeds,\u201d Leswing said in an email. <\/p>\n The city concurred. <\/p>\n The switching of the bike and pedestrian zones was designed to slow bikes down and allow users to \u201cexperience both sides of the bridge and the amazing views,\u201d Ra\u2019Chelle Rogers, spokesperson for Philadelphia\u2019s parks and recreation department, said in an email. <\/p>\n The traffic pattern switch was in response to \u201cwhat was heard from the public and stakeholders,\u201d according to Rogers. <\/p>\n Are trail users following the rules? Not completely. <\/p>\n On one Reddit post<\/a>, cyclists said the traffic pattern change and accompanying signage \u201cmakes zero sense\u201d and \u201ccould not be more Looney Toons.\u201d Most cyclists and pedestrians just stay to the right, commenters said. <\/p>\n This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate<\/a>. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min Towering 80 feet above the Schuylkill and shaped by its colossal concrete arches,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,185,184,186,115115],"class_list":["post-273627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-manayunk-bridge-traffic-bikes-pedestrians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}