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The trail system is at the heart of every park. A well-designed trail system enables a park user to access the landscape with as few environmental impacts as possible. In August 1999, Andropogon Associates, Ltd. was retained by NLREEP to
produce trail master plans for five parks - Cobbs
Creek, Fairmount
(East/West), Tacony
Creek, Pennypack and Poquessing Creek. In
addition to creating park specific plans, the goal was to
develop policies and approaches that could be applied system wide. The project team conducted a comprehensive inventory of the parks and gathered information from various sources including field surveys, site reviews, user and staff interviews and workshops in order to establish base information for each park. This process allowed the team to identify with park staff and the community their concerns regarding trail use and development. Staff and community members were engaged through park tours and trail walks, workshops, public meetings and a website. Following the inventory phase, schematic trail plans were presented at public workshops and meetings that helped establish guidelines for a comprehensive trail network. Review and assessment of the work in progress allowed for the development of plans that were agreed to and supported by the park's constituents. Another important focus of this phase was to achieve an accord regarding the stewardship and management philosophy for the trail system.The trail master plans propose an appropriate vision of the park trail systems that incorporate history, acknowledge todays realities and confront and reconcile the most serious problems faced by the parks. A user-based trails management program is proposed as the primary vehicle for achieving these objectives. The primary purpose of the program is to create informed and responsible users. The plan for each park
includes recommendations for creating, closing or improving trails, suggested
regulations for trail use, and signage and trail maintenance methods. In
addition, trail restoration projects and first
and second priority implementation projects are proposed. First priority includes select demonstration
projects, ongoing rogue trail closures, all-terrain vehicle control and
expansion of the trail user permit system.
Examples of second priority projects include the completion of proposed
paved multi-use trails, gateways and trailheads. The master plans estimated the total cost of all
recommendations to be approximately $24 million in the year 2000.
The trail master
plans have as their foundation the protection and restoration of the parks
environmental resources. The
restoration objectives are supported in the plans by confining the impacts of
the trail system to the trails themselves and by creating infrastructure
that is adequate for the level of use.
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