February 15, 2004

by Monica Yant Kinney, Inquirer Columnist

It's too bad Jack Heath coaches cross-country at Gloucester Catholic High School only as a side job. If he were a full-time teacher, he'd have a great government lesson to share with his students.

It begins, and ends, on the jogging path at Cooper River Park.As any runner knows, cruising around the same 3.7-mile loop day after day after day can get boring.But the alternative - jogging the length of the park, from Pennsauken to Cherry Hill - involves a long wait and a daring dash across Cuthbert Boulevard.Imagine the video game Frogger.

Heath, who works in computer security at Lockheed Martin, figured there had to be a safer way. He thought something as simple as a pedestrian bridge over the street would open up the park to everyone. So he wrote a letter to then-Gov. Christie Whitman. That was 2001.

In short order, he'd sent more letters and scheduled meetings with an array of public officials. Everyone loved the idea. But no one could say if, when or how anything could be done with it.

Paper chase. From the start, it all sounded so promising. In February 2001, Heath met with Camden County Freeholder Thomas Gurick and Dominic Vesper, who runs the county Public Works Department, to talk about ways to make the park safer and more user-friendly. Vesper was so impressed he solicited an engineering study.

The study took months to complete, providing Heath with his first lesson about the gait of government. The final report suggested four ways to tackle the problem: Fix the traffic light at the intersection, add a second light, widen the pathway along Cuthbert, or build a pedestrian bridge.

The bridge, of course, was the most expensive option, costing more than $2 million. Vesper remained intrigued, but voiced concern in an October 2001 e-mail. "The steel structure is questionable because of the costs involved," he wrote Heath. "Is a steel structure something we want in our parks?" But Heath wasn't deterred.

He reached out to every government agency he could think of, from the state Department of Transportation to the National Park Service. He met with the man who runs the miniature golf course at the park and with folks from U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews' office, anyone who might voice support for the bridge.

Heath researched grants that could pay for the project and looked into ways the county could buy a dismantled bridge from Philadelphia. He even solicited rich folks in the private sector - Donald Trump and the chief executive officer of Wawa among them. Slow and steady wins what?

Always, the responses were gracious, nodding and encouraging. "Everyone always says it's a great idea," he reports. "They like it because it's something positive." But 2001 passed, as did 2002. The e-mails stacked up, then dried up. The meetings tapered off.

Last year, the county wound up spending $500,000 on traffic lights at the park. Not, Vesper said, because that was the cheapest option. But because it provided the biggest bang, safety-wise, for the bucks. And the bridge? Vesper still thinks it's "a great idea."

But one that could eat up too much parkland and may not get much use, even if the county wins one of those grants Heath researched. So is it a go, or no? No one's telling Heath anything at this point. Officially, the officials still love it.

Heath's too decent a guy to become one of those irate gadfly types. But he does admit being disappointed with his insider's look at government in inaction. "I don't think they should give up that easy," he says. "It seems like the money is out there."

Heath still runs at the park. But he doesn't take his cross-country team there much anymore. The runners need to improve their times, and, you see, they can't afford to wait 10 minutes just to cross the street.