This is SOOO important.

Click on title for full article... please note that Wally McLean, who is so safety-minded and quoted extensively in this article, is a member of The Save Ardmore Coalition:

Main Line Times: School district and Amtrak want to keep students from crossing tracks
By:RICHARD ILGENFRITZ

ARDMORE - Now that thousands of students are back to schools in Lower Merion and the Church Road Bridge has finally been closed for its long delayed reconstruction, the challenge remains to discourage students and other pedestrians from taking a dangerous shortcut across the railroad tracks.

Lower Merion School District spokesman Doug Young last week said the district has decided to bus students living in portions of Ardmore who would otherwise walk to Lower Merion High School.

....The Church Road Bridge, which closed for a long-term replacement project this summer, was the only safe and legal crossing point across the railroad tracks between Penn Road in Wynnewood and Anderson Avenue in Ardmore. Students living in the area of Lower Merion east of the Ardmore business district as well as in the western portion of Wynnewood have traditionally taken the Church Road Bridge as the most direct route to and from Lower Merion High School.

A major link between Lancaster and Montgomery avenues, the bridge also gave easy access to pedestrians traveling to and from Suburban Square.

A short distance from the Church Road Bridge, Amtrak recently put up fences in between the outbound and inbound rail lines near the Ardmore train Station.

Wally McLean, who has been caring for the flower gardens at the Ardmore station for the past 18 years, said he's seen pedestrians taking the shortcut across the tracks near the station.

"They don't want to use the tunnel, so they cross the tracks," McLean said. "This should stop that."