Thank you for alerting the community to plans to remove the public steps that provide access to the Irving Cliff neighborhood in Honesdale. The steps have been badly neglected for years; might that be so that their bad condition can be used as an excuse to close them? The borough should fix them instead. I use these steps on a daily basis as a grandmother providing child care for my young grandchildren, and I can personally attest to the fact that it is difficult to access the neighborhood by car. 

Parking on the street is extremely limited, and some of the homes have no garage or driveway. The neighborhood also has no other safe pedestrian access. Cottage Street, for example, has no sidewalk, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street. If there were no stairs, that would require walking up and down the incline at the base of the street which is so steep that it is literally a slippery slope, especially in bad weather.

At the top of the incline is a blind curve that makes it impossible for drivers to see pedestrians until the last minute. It makes no sense to reduce safe pedestrian access between this neighborhood and downtown, which is only a few blocks away. 

Again, I can personally attest to the fact that Honesdale’s walkable downtown area is one of its main charms, attracting not only visitors but also new residents such as myself. To keep local businesses flourishing, every reasonable effort should be made to reduce the number of unnecessary vehicles in the downtown area so that people who must arrive by vehicle can easily do so, while everyone who prefers to enjoy the area on foot can also easily do so.

Catherine Schmidt-Jones
Honesdale, PA