April 07 Update

Dear Members & Friends:

I hope this e-mail finds all of you and your family's well. Hopefully, soon Spring will spring forward and we can all get outside a little more.

I haven't gotten any new information out to you lately, and yet a good amount has been accomplished recently.

As most of you know, we have been trying to get the Engineering Study started on Phase I of the Chester Creek Branch Rail-Trail ("CCB"). Phase I is the approximately three mile section from Lenni Road to Creek Road. Late last year we circulated a request for proposal ("RFP") for this study. We received four excellent proposals for the study. All four bidders did a great deal of work putting their proposals together and all had very good approaches. Unfortunately for three of the bidders, we could only select one winner. After a couple of months of deliberations (the proposals in total were about a foot thick - a great deal of studying and comparisons had to be made between them) a firm has been selected to start the study. Unfortunately, we can not release the name of the winner as a contract is not yet in place. Hopefully, we will be able to get this out shortly.

Even though a contract has not been signed, some work has been started - a couple of weeks ago they sent a plane over the Phase I section of the CCB for aerial pictures to be used in the mapping and plan creations. Some may ask why this was done prior to a contract being executed - the pictures had to be taken before ground foliage leafed out, or the study would have been delayed until the Fall.

There is a funding issue with the wining bid (and in actuality, all of the bids). It appears costs will be higher for this study than planned. Therefore, a Growing Greener Grant application was just sent to the State. If we receive this grant, there will still be a shortfall for funding, but we are actively working on closing this funding gap. We have a good plan to do this, and I don't anticipate it being a long term problem or slowing up the study.

In another area for the CCB, Friends is working with SEPTA and the County to find a way for the trail to work from Lenni Road to across Baltimore Pike. Although only about a half-mile in length, this is an important part of the trail for us as it would connect with a future SEPTA R3 Station and the Middletown Township trails on the other side of Route 1. The difficulty is that SEPTA and the County want to extend the R3 line to Wawa and for this half-mile there is a narrow right of way to place both the trail and extended R3 line. The R3 extension is a very important project for the area and it needs to move forward. The difficulty is how to do both projects in a narrow area at the same time. Our work will continue on this.

The subject line of this e-mail also mentioned volunteer opportunities and we have two of them coming up in the next few weeks:

On Saturday, May 5th, Friends will be joining the CRC Watersheds Association for their annual stream clean-up. This year Friends will be working on the portion of the Chester Creek next to Poore Park in Aston. Poore Park is a new area for us and is located at the intersection of Mount & New Roads in Aston. We always have a fun time doing this, there are free t-shirts and a picnic at Rose Tree Park for those participating. Please get back to me if you are interested in joining us for this fun and worthwhile event.
On the following Saturday, May 12th, Middletown Township will be holding their annual Pride Days at the Williamson Trade School grounds on Route 352. Friends will have a booth at this event, and we would love to have some volunteers join us to meet people and talk about our trail. This is always a fun day, also.

Please get back to me if you are interested in volunteering with Friends for either or both of these events.

Finally, I wanted to express my thanks to the folks at the Delaware County Planning Department. They have been invaluable in moving the CCB in general, and the engineering study in particular, forward. Thank you for your great support!

Sorry for the length of this e-mail, but as always thank you for your support.

Mike Fusco