Eagerly Awaiting Rail Park? You’ll Have to Wait a Bit Longer

Residents of Center City who have been waiting over a year for the opening of Rail Park (the former Reading Viaduct raised park project) will have to wait a bit longer to enjoy the new parkland: the opening of the park has been pushed back to spring. The culprit is a decaying pedestrian bridge located over 13th Street. The Center City District business association announced that, upon finding rusting and corrosion of the structural beams holding the bridge up, that the park’s opening would have to be delayed until the bridge could be fixed.

The first phase of Rail Park, as seen here, won’t be able to open until a decaying pedestrian bridge is replaced.

Renovation crews discovered the damage while working on the final touches of the park’s first phase, scheduled for a February ribbon-cutting. Now the city has to secure a contractor to replace the bridge, a move that Center City District President Paul Levy said should happen later this month: “When we demolish the existing bridge we’re gonna save all of those girders, renovate them and put them back on the top as we originally planned,” Levy told the local CBS affiliate “But they’ll no longer be structural support beams.” The cost of this project has not yet been announced, but the city will be picking up the bill.

Rail Park’s initial quarter-mile section, which will extend from near Broad and Noble Streets to a crossroads just beyond 12th and Callowhill Streets, cannot be opened until the bridge is rebuilt. The damaged beams from the bridge will be re-purposed to frame walkways and create planters for shrubs and trees along the park walkway.

Maybe the delay is a good thing after all, Levy reasoned. After all, right now it is the dead of winter and all the plants and shrubby are faded and gloomy. Come April or May, however, and parkgoers will have a blooming, bright space to enjoy. Call it a silver lining.