While on vacation, David Malehorn, a new friend associated with Friends of the Riverfront has agreed to do TOTAR this week. Here is today’s entry
Today I walked from Oakland to the Terminal Building (Carson St & 4th St, Southside) for a meeting of Friends of the Riverfront (FOR). As I crossed the Birmingham Bridge, I snapped a shot of your average coal barge, fully loaded, chugging downstream near the 10th Street Bridge on the Lower Mon river. This tug is pushing twelve loaded barges; I’ve recently seen one tug pushing 19 empties. If I’m out paddling on the river when a loaded barge goes past, I’ll frequently pull to shore and hang onto a branch to ride out their wake. Here on the Emsworth Pool, most natural shores are gone and replaced with floodwalls which just send the waves reverberating back and forth for quite a while.
Nearing the south end of the bridge, I got a nice view of the Southside Riverfront Park, an essential and heavily used access point for the Mon. In this shot, I captured a rocky spot which is a hangout for geese (and which serves as an informal flood guage on the Emsworth Pool), as well as some fisherman trying their luck, and the boat ramp and seasonal dock. Elsewhere in the park (not pictured), FOR has constructed one of its numerous boat ramps for nonmotorized water craft, including a large metal boat rack. The Three Rivers Heritage Trail (TRHT) for biking and walking runs the length of the this park and continues in both directions along the Mon and connects to Allegheny segments and city bike routes.
Finally at the Terminal Building, I took a moment to snap a picture of the 4th Street boat access, which is just off the TRHT, and situated in a tiny break in the retaining wall, where FOR has engineered stairway, plantings, and a boat dock which is very popular with fishermen. Note the orange colored paddle sign; these now dot the shores of all three rivers where FOR has created and installed water access points.
