A council of local governments is looking into closing Skyline Drive near the Pagoda at night.
The board of directors of the Mount Penn Preserve Partnership has ordered a study of the liabilities and logistics involved in closing the mountaintop road from List Road to Angora Road during nighttime hours for safety and security.
The MP3, as the partnership is known, is composed of officials from Berks County and the four municipalities traversed by Skyline Drive: Reading, Mount Penn, and Alsace and Lower Alsace townships.
City Councilwoman Marcia Goodman-Hinnershitz, one of two city appointees to the board, has called for a town hall meeting on the proposal.
“The public needs to be kept abreast of what we’re doing,” she said. “Obviously if you make this kind of big change to a roadway, there’s going to be a lot of public sentiment about it.”
People have asked her about the plan, she said, and most understand the reasoning behind it.
Closing the road from dusk to dawn would cut down on the large and raucous gatherings and other illegal activities in the vicinity of the Pagoda and Skyline Drive lookouts, MP3 board members said.
Lee Olsen, one of the county appointees, said a request for proposals for the study could be ready by September.
The request for proposals, which will be funded by the city, would outline the objectives of the study.
The cost for any gates, guardrails or road alterations would be paid by the municipalities where that section of affected roadway lies.
The study would consider the usefulness of installing guardrails at select points, Olsen said. In addition to serving as safety barriers, the guardrails would make illegal dumping more difficult.
Partying at the Pagoda and vicinity, accompanied by littering, disturbing the peace and other illegal behaviors, has been a problem for years.
Additional patrolling by the Reading and Central Berks Regional police and a gate installed at the Pagoda last year reduced noise issues in that area, residents said, but the problem then migrated north to the overlook on Skyline Drive at List Road.
“We’re starting to see a resurgence of problems again up in the Skyline Drive area, Goodman-Hinnershitz said at a recent council meeting. “I think that we need to look strategically how we’re going to discuss this again.”
Riverfront problems
Council also recently received correspondence concerning the resurgence of noise issues and illegal behavior on the city’s riverfront, she said.
“I’m not going to call it Penske Beach anymore,” Goodman-Hinnershitz said, referring to the approximately 7-acre stretch on Riverfront Drive, near Penske Truck Leasing, “because I think that makes it appear as if this is a beach area. It’s not.”
Known as Riverfront Park, the land is south of Reading Area Community College. It is owned by the Reading Redevelopment Authority and is in the city’s manufacturing and commercial zoning district.
Last year, the city posted no-parking signs along the length of Riverfront Drive, which cut down on the problem.
Despite the parking restrictions, there has been a resurgence of illegal, inappropriate and potentially dangerous activity on the site, Goodman-Hinnershitz said.
Council received reports of the unsanitary trash, including human body waste, left in the park after the weekend, Councilman Christopher Daubert said.
The issue cannot be solved with education, he said.
“This really goes beyond education,” Daubert said, “because there’s no conceivable way that someone would think that it was OK to leave part of our natural area in such disrepair.”
Illegal behavior must be curtailed with law enforcement, he said.
The fact that Reading’s riverfront draws visitors from outside the area provides an economic opportunity, Councilman Wesley Butler said.
“I’ve always said with the amount of people that are coming to our riverfront, we should start making money off of it,” Butler said. “Start monetizing it.”
License plates from New York and New Jersey — states with oceanfront beaches — have been seen on vehicles parked along Riverfront Drive and in the general vicinity.
“But they’d rather come here for some reason,” Butler said. “Start charging for parking, maybe have some food vendors there, start making money off of it instead of always just complaining and not doing anything.”
Organized activities, such as kayaking on the river, could provide an alternative to the illegal partying, he said, noting a public kayaking event is scheduled for August.
Council President Donna Reed asked City Clerk Linda Kelleher to schedule a town hall meeting to discuss the use of the property.
Reed also requested that Mayor Eddie Moran, members of the administration and the Reading Redevelopment Authority board, and representatives of RACC be invited to participate.
Source: Berkshire mont
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