Tag Archives: Downingtown trestle bridge

for christmas can pennsylvania please address “suicide bridge” aka the trestle bridge in downingtown, pa?

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I have written about this bridge before over the past few years. At the bottom of the post are the three posts I have written.

We all talk about this bridge, it’s incredibly historic and incredibly dangerous. See this video that is about a year old I just found:

I just can’t even with this. And I will tell you why. I know if people are set on ending their lives, they will find a way. But it seems to me there should be some way to secure this a little better?

I also found a video of kids climbing it:

Here’s a drone video:

There are actually a lot of videos about this bridge. It has undisputable history, and it is also a jumper location. Not being crass, but there is good reason why it is called suicide bridge.

I was told a couple of days ago that there have been TWO suicides, as in two new suicides here in the past couple of weeks or so. Please NOTE these aren’t all teenagers. That is incredibly sad.

This backs up what I was told in part:

Someone I was speaking with the other day said there have been at least 10 suicides in the last 7 years. I do know that only 2, yes 2 have been reported. No one wants to talk about suicide or mental health resources being in short supply, but how many suicides off of just this bridge alone before we have this conversation. I understand that Senator Carolyn Commita is rumored to be meeting with people about this from somewhere local supposedly this week, but is this something she will stick her neck out for?

And Governor Josh Shapiro seems to like grabbing headlines, so Governor Shapiro, how about grabbing a headline for good? After all I have also been told this abandoned/orphaned bridge is no longer under the not so watchful eyes of Norfolk Southern, but instead PennDOT so that brings responsibility all IN state, so hey how about it Governor Shapiro? Because I know how SLOW PennDOT is on orphaned bridges because I used to write about one that it took PennDOT over a decade to take care of. That is the Pennswood Bridge in Bryn Mawr. And this Trestle Bridge would be an actual emergency situation so if Governor Shapiro can waive a magic wand for I-95 bridges, why not here as a mitzvah for the holidays?

Below along with links of former posts on this bridge are screenshots I have taken of videos of this bridge. This bridge is dangerously decrepit up top, and it really doesn’t seem like there is anything much preventing people from getting up there.

Surely something can be done to remove the horrible reputation of this historic bridge?

What can YOU do? Contact politicians, Chester County officials, random PennDOT people and sign the petition isn’t a bad idea is it? Note that there are all sorts of PennDOT bridge etc. projects in the area and they all have project managers. Throw enough spaghetti against a wall and things stick right? We can hope it is the same with PennDOT… all we can do is try….public officials won’t care unless we show them WE care.

https://www.change.org/p/do-something-about-downingtown-s-trestle-bridge

Contact Governor Josh Shapiro https://www.governor.pa.gov/contact/

PennDOT Chester County Maintenance is right in Coatesville: Phone: 484-340-3200

PennDOT Engineering District 6 is in King of Prussia Phone: 610-205-6700

PennDOT Municipal Services Supervisor: Louis Calvanese, louicalvan@pa.gov, 610-205-6541

PennDOT Press Release Person/Media: Robyn Briggs, robbriggs@pa.gov (Her husband is State Rep Tim Briggs FWIW)

PennDOT Boot Rd Bridge Project Manager, Justin Gattorno Phone: 610-205-6693Email: jgattorno@pa.gov

PennDOT Doe Run Bridge Project Manager, Nathan Parris Email: c-nparrish@pa.gov

PennDOT Ship Road over Valley Creek Bridge Project Manager, Nicholas Macelko Email: nimacelko@pa.go Phone: 610-205-6529

​U.S. 322 (West Chester Bypass) Ida Slope Restoration Project Manager, Kalpesh Parikh Email: c-kparikh@pa.gov Phone: 610-205-6621

Call PA Senator Carolyn Comitta’s District Office 610692211                                  https://www.facebook.com/SenatorComitta  https://www.instagram.com/senatorcomitta/  https://twitter.com/SenatorComitta            
   Email her Chief of Staff Michael Hartman  michael.hartman@pasenate.com                                                              

Call Chester County Planning Commission 6103446285                   https://www.instagram.com/chescoplanning/?hl=en                    https://www.facebook.com/ccplanning/                                   

Email: ccplanning@chesco.org                                 

PennDOT (NEW owners of bridge) https://customercare.penndot.gov/eCCC/eCCC.nsf/m_Start.xsp

here we are again, what can we do?
norfolk southern needs to realize there are things we can change to make things better. (petition link attached)
norfolk southern please do something

norfolk southern please do something

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That is a very grainy photo that was sent to me today it shows a person up on that trestle bridge in Downingtown. Consider this a follow up to yesterday’s post about Norfolk Southern’s essentially abandoned property.

This is dangerous, crumbling, and could become an adaptive reuse and at a minimum have public access removed until such time they decide.

It kind of makes you wonder why the media isn’t covering this doesn’t it?

Having lived in communities that have “orphaned“ railroad bridges, railroad tunnels, railroad trestles I know there is a process. Which is probably why although everyone has heard talk of making this part of a bike trail and made safe nothing has happened. Norfolk Southern has to sign off on it, possibly deed it to the county, state, or whomever.

However getting anything to happen can take years. And a life was almost lost the other day which is why the petition started. We don’t have more years to waste on this.

https://www.change.org/p/do-something-abouttrestle-bridge

Everyone is afraid to talk about this location because they’re afraid more people will be drawn to it who have thoughts of suicide. But I think we have to draw attention to it because if we don’t nothing will happen and no change will occur.

As I said to someone today the issue of this bridge draws attention to the fact that Chester County is about to be in a true mental health crisis if it isn’t already with Brandywine Hospital being closed by Tower Health January 31. It was the only mental health facility outside of Philadelphia. I really don’t understand what Tower Health has done with all their money number one, and number two they got a lot of cares act money how did they spend it? Why couldn’t the state help Chester County keep at least Brandywine Hospital open?

The other thing about drawing attention to this dangerous and crumbling trestle bridge is it IS dangerous and Norfolk Southern is culpable. It IS a suicide bridge and not talking about it won’t make it better or go away. It simply means that more families will suffer the tragedy of suicide from this location and do we wish that on any human being? I certainly do not.

So let’s make this bridge a big public issue. The more we can talk about it the more it helps our elected officials draw attention to it and the need to solve a problem here immediately not a few years from now if at all.

I am asking my readers if you have photos of this bridge especially with people up on it please send them to me. We need to make this public. I am also asking for all of you to take the time to not only contact your elected officials but contact Norfolk Southern and CC your elected officials and even media contacts if you have them.

social.media@nscorp.com

alan.shaw@nscorp.com

media.relations@nscorp.com

ATLNOCSID@nscorp.com

alan.shaw@exchange.nscorp.com

You can also contact Norfolk Southern through their social media page on Facebook and they also have Twitter of not more.

They could pay to make the safe, they could pay to secure it until the plan is agreed-upon for a trail or whatever, basically they have the money to make this right. So it all should not come out of the taxpayer monies of Chester County residents.

We can’t afford to monkey around with this, even if we don’t live in Downingtown. and no matter what our political persuasion addressing this issue is something that is just a good thing to do, it’s for the community, it will help families, we can come together shortly and put our differences aside over this I would hope. It’s very core at a minimum it’s a public health, safety and welfare issue.

So Norfolk Southern, come on now, we know you know, it’s time to act. Stop the jumping off #suicidebridge starting with securing the location to keep people off, followed by making this something #SAFE and more #POSITIVE .

Stay warm today readers and thanks for stopping by.

#suicideprevention #talkaboutit #fixthebridge