Advocating for Safe Bike and Pedestrian Access Up Snowden Lane

The Friends of Herrontown Woods has for many years been advocating for better bicycle and pedestrian access to Herrontown Woods and Smoyer Park. This past week, the last stretch up from town along Snowden Lane got a little safer.

A strip of asphalt was laid down for bikes and pedestrians in front of the Windy Top development at the top of the hill. Though in the original plans finalized years ago, the walkway was only added after the last of seven houses was finally built. 

The portion at the very top of the hill is especially welcomed, since a pedestrian was hit and badly injured there some years back, perhaps due to the limited sight lines at the crest. 

The walkway deadends at either end, however, at the edge of the Windy Top property. Extension to the entrances to Herrontown Woods and Smoyer Park will likely be the town's responsibility. 

And extension of the walkway down to Van Dyke will likely need to wait until the housing development being built on the larger corner property there is completed. 

Even when that happens, there will still be what we call "the gauntlet" that extends from Van Dyke down across the bridge to Overbrook Drive. Building a walkway along that stretch is critical for anyone in the Littlebrook neighborhood wanting to access Smoyer Park and Herrontown Woods in anything other than a car. 

Long ago, Snowden Lane was a charming country road with a little stone-arch bridge over the stream. With all the houses going in, the charm of the narrow road with steep ditches on either side is giving way to a need for safe access to the preserved public recreational lands at the top of the hill.   

One remnant of that distant rural era that we'd like to see preserved and repurposed is the old stone bridge over the stream. FOHW has alerted the town to the existence of the bridge, and is advocating for finding a way to utilize it for bike and pedestrian access up Snowden Lane.