A Penn Forest Township resident suggested a pedestrian bridge and blockade that would help pedestrians better navigate from the parking area of Jim Thorpe into the main area of the town.

On Thursday, William Miller approached the Carbon County Commissioners with the idea, saying that constructing a bridge over Route 209 would help keep crowds flowing instead of backing up in the park, trying to cross Susquehanna Street (Route 209) to head into the historic district.

“A buddy of mine, who works down there in the summer time doing traffic control, he tells me every time it’s the same thing, when the trains come in, the intersection gets all crowded up. You’re moving 1,500 to 2,000 people between two trains across an intersection in a four-hour period. Of course you’re going to have pandemonium,” Miller said. “Here’s my recommendation, a pedestrian bridge I would recommend the first place to put it would be near Race Street.”

He added that the pedestrian bridge could stretch from Josiah White Park, above Route 209, and down onto Race Street, where visitors could then either travel up Race Street or head toward Broadway.

In addition, Miller said for those with wheelchairs and other disabilities who wouldn’t be able to climb the steps for the bridge, he recommended putting gates at the other exit to the park and keeping them closed, opening them for three minutes every 20 minutes to allow for other pedestrian traffic to cross Route 209.

“I would put a 180-second countdown clock like they do in cities. You got so many seconds to get through that intersection,” Miller said. “You could drag a dead horse in 3 minutes through that intersection. That should be plenty of time.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein agreed with the idea, noting that he feels pedestrian traffic is a big part of the problem in the town; however, the location may not be the best because the county does not own both sides of the land on either side of Route 209.

The board also agreed that it may be hard to corral pedestrians to use the bridge and wait for the gates to open because they aren’t patient now and walk everywhere they aren’t supposed to, creating headaches for motorists.

“They don’t walk in the walkways. They don’t follow the signs,” Nothstein said.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich added that the hardest part is going to get the people to comply.

“We can’t even keep them in crosswalks,” he said. “People are also lazy. They won’t like to climb the steps. That’s just the reality. I’ve seen pedestrian bridges across the road. In some places you have high compliance, but that’s a culture of compliance. You have a culture of noncompliance and individuality like the United States? People are going to take the shortest distance between two points even when it puts them or their families at risk.”

Miller said he and neighbors don’t want to come down to Jim Thorpe anymore because of the exponential growth in tourism in the town, coupled with the lack of available parking to handle that growth.

He suggested utilizing Packerton Yards to create a parking area that would then provide shuttle services into Jim Thorpe. This would alleviate the parking issue, as well as neighboring Lehighton’s complaint of Jim Thorpe’s new traffic pattern on weekends that takes traffic away from the town.

Nothstein said that the county has spoken to two people interested in Packerton Yards for that very possibility, but nothing has been put down in contracts.

Lukasevich then suggested Miller also bring his idea to the borough of Jim Thorpe because it is ultimately their responsibility for traffic outside the county lots and in town.

He also invited him to sit in on a virtual discussion at 2 p.m. on Dec. 19 on his C4 Commissioners Facebook page, which will discuss overtourism.

The discussion will be held between Dr. Harold Goodwin, an expert on overtourism, as well as Marlyn Kissner of Pocono Mountain Visitors Bureau, Kathy Henderson of the Carbon chamber and Michael Rivkin, past president of Jim Thorpe Tourism Agency.