Could two Bellefonte parks be linked by a walking trail? Council approves study

Bellefonte Borough is home to five unique parks, and two of its more popular ones could soon be connected through a new walking path.

The borough council at its meeting Monday unanimously gave Stahl Sheaffer Engineering the green light to carry out a feasibility study that will explore the possibility of linking Talleyrand Park and Joseph Masullo Memorial Park via a pedestrian walking trail.

The study will cost the borough $5,950 and explore installing a pedestrian path from the Bellefonte train station at 320 W. High St., along an abandoned, borough-owned railroad spur corridor next to South Potter Street, to Masullo Park. It could also include the construction of a footbridge or two.

According to council member Joanne Tosti-Vasey, the firm will explore two options for the crossing. The first would see the walking path run from the train station to the very end of the corridor.

From there, a bridge would be built across Spring Creek, which would provide direct access to Masullo Park — although that bridge would be located in the middle of a flood plain, which could cause future development issues.

The second option would see the South Potter Street walking path end at a large concrete pad that sits directly across the road from 167 S. Potter St., the former home of the short-lived Parlor ice cream shop and future home of the Bellefonte Bread Baker.

A first footbridge would be then be built across Spring Creek from the pad, next to the American Philatelic Society building, and a second bridge would be built across Logan Branch near the upper end of Masullo Park to avoid the flood plain. This option would likely cost more due to the construction of two bridges, however.

Because the council members only approved a feasibility study, they have not identified which of the two options they prefer. Following the completion of the study, the council will then decide if they want to pursue either option.

The feasibility study’s timeline for completion was not shared at the meeting, or in a Stahl Sheaffer memo that was sent to the borough on April 6 and was included in Monday’s agenda. Some preliminary concept drawings and planning cost estimates for each option will be shared when the study is finished.

“We aren’t going to get a lot of drawings from the feasibility study,” Tosti-Vasey said. “They’re doing three different steps. One of them is called a laptop review, looking at a [geographic information system], and then they’re going to go from there to doing a walk-through, and they will do some simple drawings.”

Council member Deborah Cleeton added that she’s eager to see the layout of the potential pathways, while Chair Doug Johnson reminisced while discussing the possibility of a path. When he was a student in the Bellefonte Area School District, he said local officials would erect a makeshift bridge across Spring Creek to allow access from the Reynolds Avenue playground to South Potter Street.

“We could go from the Reynolds Avenue playground over to Potter Street, and it was just driving steel posts into the stream bed, and putting a steel brace across with two-by-12s that went across, and we had just a great time pushing people off the bridge,” Johnson said.

He continued, “They would take it out — it would only be there seasonally, until the end of the playground season. Just a happy memory of Bellefonte Borough, and growing up in Bellefonte.”

More information on the feasibility study will be shared at future Bellefonte Borough work sessions and council meetings. Work sessions typically take place at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Mondays of the month, and are immediately followed by the official council meeting at 7:30 p.m.