Staff Editorial: No water, but troubled

In just a few months, the Locust Walk bridge that spans 38th Street will take a decidedly different form than it does now.

According to University plans, a "generational walk" will soon come to be on the plain, grey, bricks-and-mortar structure that decades of Penn students have crossed on their way to class. The rejuvenation -- which is scheduled to be completed this November -- will feature a series of bricks celebrating families with multiple Penn graduates, and is further designed to help celebrate the 125th anniversary of women at Penn.

Without question, November's celebration -- and the choice of a bridge as a symbol of that event -- are both fitting commemorations. But between now and then, one problem continues to stand in the way.

The 38th Street bridge, now under heavy construction, is unsafe.

Its structure is sound, true.

And there are no questions about the integrity of its surface, drainage or lighting fixtures. But during the renovation period, the thousands of students, staff and residents who cross it every day have been left with a dangerously thin pathway to negotiate.

That pathway is where the trouble lies. On a campus that's seemingly always in a hurry -- where bicycles, carts, pedestrians and even oversized Penn football helmets already compete for space on crowded Locust Walk -- the small space left over by current construction poses a genuine and significant risk to the personal safety of all who cross the bridge.

Poor planning, it seems, has focused the current construction on the two sides of the bridge simulatenously, when it likely could have been isolated to one side of a time. And what's more, the sporadic presence of extra security guards -- as well as the presence of signs urging riders to walk their bicycles across the path -- seem to be accomplishing little.

The University must take immediate steps to reconfigure construction on the 38th Street bridge, for the good of both student safety and the event which the renovation is designed to celebrate.

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