October 4, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Neighbors oppose Creshiem Trail
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

At a meeting last week, cyclists, runners and dog walkers in Montgomery County were enthusiastic about the proposed 4.5-mile trail that would connect the county’s suburban towns to Philadelphia trails, while those who opposed it voiced their concern that the trail might increase crime, invade their privacy and take portions of their property.

“I’m concerned about the disruption to the neighborhood,” said Charles Bishop, who lives in Springfield. The edge of his backyard will be crossed by the trail.

“We love the privacy that we have,” he added, to the nods of his neighbors who sat at a table in Springfield High School last week before the start of the meeting to discuss the proposed trail.

The meeting was held as part of a feasibility study being conducted by Campbell Thomas and Co., an architectural and planning firm based in South Philadelphia.

For about three or four years, a group of people from Philadelphia and Montgomery County, who organized as the nonprofit Friends of Cresheim Trail, have been working to determine the possibility of creating a trail to connect the suburbs of Montgomery County with Philadelphia’s Wissahickon trail.

But as much as the Friends, cyclists and runners are happy about the trail, the neighbors whose property will be affected by it are furious.

Neighbor Pam Quisito, whose property will be crossed by the trail, said she felt that she was skipped over in the planning for this trail.

“In my mind, the feasibility study is null because I know 22 homes in a row that don’t want it [the trail],” Quisito said. “I feel like I was jumped over. When do we get to voice what we want to happen to our property? I feel like it doesn’t matter if I don’t want it.”

Robert Thomas, who is conducting the feasibility study and grew up in Mt. Airy, insisted that the study is being conducted in order to get these neighbors’ opinions.

“That’s why we’re having this open meeting, so that people aren’t excluded,” he said. “This is not a trail design, this is only a study.”

After the feasibility report is finished, and if a decision is made to go forward with the trail, municipalities that it crosses will have to give approval and an organization will be needed to oversee the trail’s maintenance, security and more, he said.

But the neighbors still felt deceived and left out of the planning process.

“It feels as if the feasibility study is to justify the trail,” said Laverock resident Cleveland Mair.

There was some support from nearby residents at the meeting.

“This will be invaluable to the neighbors and community,” said Hank O’Donnell, who lives three blocks from the proposed trail.

“It’s a great way to gather and connect my neighborhood,” he added.

Nadine Ball, who often bikes along Mermaid Lane from her Wyndmoor home to the Wissahickon, said the trail “will make my ride from Forbidden Drive much safer.”

Most of the meeting’s applause was reserved for opponents of the project, but when Springfield Township resident Dan Moscovici said, “This could be one of the best things to happen to Springfield Township,” supporters saw their chance to applaud.

But after the applause died down, the opposition pointed out that the trail wouldn’t be running across Moscovici’s backyard.

“Part of the goal is to take part of my property,” said David Morris, another resident whose property will have the trail run along it. “You want to put this trail 10 feet away from my kid’s swing set.”

The feasibility study began more than a year ago and was supposed to be concluded last summer, Thomas said, but because of delays with PECO Energy, which owns most of the land the trail will run along, the public meetings and the study’s completion have been held off.

“Since so much of the trail’s land is on PECO’s right of way … there wasn’t any point in showing people where it might go if the major land owner, PECO, might ask that it goes here or there,” Thomas explained.

Most of the proposed trail design follows an abandoned railroad line, which is now used by PECO for its electrical lines.

At the meeting, Campbell Thomas hung up satellite photos of the neighborhood and drew a yellow line where the trail could be crossing so neighbors could see their property in relation to the trail. The architectural firm also hung images from three other trails — the Radnor, the Schuylkill and the Perkiomen — so residents could see how other communities handled portions of those trails crossing their properties and what the trail’s path and its signage could potentially look like.

Mike Szilagyi, a project planner at Campbell Thomas, said that part of the trail’s construction would include fencing of the residents’ choice between their backyards and the trail, so the images displayed showed examples of fencing as well.

At the meeting, Szilagyi said that creating the trail was more likely to deter crime than cause an increase.

“Right now that area could be seething with you don’t know who,” he said. “If you open that up and widen it, and have people hiking, you clear it up.”

And he pointed out that the Radnor Trail faced even greater opposition when it was proposed in the 1980s, but now many of the neighbors have come to love the trail.

The Cresheim Trail, if developed, would connect Montgomery County’s Green Ribbon Trail, which is being restored, with the Wissahickon’s 55-miles of trails, which Friends of the Wissahickon is currently rehabilitating.

Maura McCarthy, executive director of the FOW, was present at the meeting. She said residents of the Wissahickon area love the trails and build their own private trails to the main, public one, which she said the FOW actually discourages.

But those residents, she pointed out, moved to the Wissahickon partially because of a love of hiking and the wilderness.  She said the Cresheim trail, which she supports, is going into residential neighborhoods.

“You can’t just force things on people,” she said, though she would love to see the counties connected.

The report is expected to be completed this fall.

To find out more about the trail, go to the Friends of Cresheim Trail at www.cresheim.org.

Contact staff writer Kristin Pazulski at 215-248-8819 or Kristin@chestnuthilllocal,com.