The Saucon Street Rail Trail Connection–viewed from along a new walkway, looking east along Saucon Street toward Hellertown’s Main Street–is nearly ready to open.
An eagerly-anticipated additional access point to the Saucon Rail Trail near downtown Hellertown is nearly ready to open.
The new Saucon Street rail trail connection is a gently-sloped, raised concrete walkway that stretches about 80 feet between the west side of Front Street at W. Saucon Street and the rail trail in Hellertown.
The Saucon Street rail trail connection will provide an additional point of entry/exit to the trail along Front Street at W. Saucon Street, approximately midway between the borough’s trailheads at Water Street Park to the north and Grist Mill Park to the south.
A 2010 Walkable Communities study identified the western terminus of Saucon Street as an important mid-point connection between the trail and the nearby Main Street commercial district.
Funding for the construction of the connection came from a $180,000 grant from the Northampton County Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), which also funded the addition of handicapped ramps with bump-outs and marked crosswalks at the intersections of Saucon and Harris streets and Saucon and Front streets.
One of the newly-constructed, handicapped-accessible pedestrian bumpouts designed to help calm traffic and make it easier to cross the street at the intersection of W. Saucon and Front streets in Hellertown.
