Walkway

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - About a decade ago, Bill Sepe uncorked a doozy of an idea. The old Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge - an engineering marvel in 1888 but a delinquent eyesore ever since a spectacular fire closed it in 1974 - should be transformed, he said, into a pedestrian skyway over the Hudson River. The old rail bed, wrapped in its Victorian-era lattice of steel, 200 feet above the water, would get a second life, he said, as strollers and bikers thrilled to the view and the history.

A long-impassable section of the brick promenade that rings the Inner Harbor could soon be repaired if a settlement deal among Baltimore officials, a team of Harbor East developers and a design firm is approved by the city's spending board. The section of promenade, which spans the 1400 and 1500 blocks of Thames St., was built by the city with a state highway grant in 2004. It partially collapsed about three years ago, after "undetected soft soils" settled, shifting the bricks.

Baltimore homicide detectives are investigating the slaying of a city woman whose body was found yesterday in a walkway leading to the Inner Harbor, a killing that has touched off fears among downtown merchants and employees. Investigators did not release the woman's identity last night. They said the killing does not look to have been a random attack and was most likely committed by someone who knew the victim. The woman, described as a black female in her mid-30s, had planned to meet with someone just before the attack and was probably killed several hours before her body was discovered near the Baltimore Convention Center at 6:30 a.m., police said.

THE REBIRTH of Canton's old American Can Co. plant is cause for celebration. The vacant and vandalized industrial hulk has been transformed into a glittering complex that houses a bookstore, restaurants, specialty shops and a technology center. Some 800 people will eventually work in the eight-story building that has dramatic views of the harbor and downtown skyline.The American Can conversion is the latest feather in the cap of C. William Struever, whose construction company in the past 25 years has refashioned many abandoned landmarks, including the Inner Harbor's Power Plant and Hampden's Mill Center.

POTOMAC -- Fifteen damage assessment teams yesterday began slogging through mud and ice along the Potomac River to tally flood damage to the C&O Canal National Historical Park.The devastating floods last weekend washed out the park's towpath and walkways in many spots and drained much of the canal. The damage has indefinitely closed the popular, 184-mile-long getaway, which is visited by 5 million people a year.The extent of the damage won't be known until next week. But it already is being described as worse than that from a 1985 inundation, which took the National Park Service several years and $10 million to repair.

POTOMAC -- Art Mitchell is out here with a generator-powered hand drill on the first truly hot Saturday of spring, screwing 2-by-8-inch, rough-hewn rails onto 8-by-8 posts. 10: 45 a.m., even in the shade in the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, his face is beaded with perspiration, his T-shirt wet through.Mitchell, a statistician from Falls Church, Va., is working at Great Falls on a winding, 0.6-mile long walkway -- part boardwalk, part concrete-and-steel -- across adjoining Olmsted and Falls islands.

The floating promenade that rings the Moorings, a collection of million-dollar Canton townhomes, was intended to be a peaceful spot to stroll, jog or gaze over the water. But for city officials and townhome residents, it's been the source of several years of headaches — and could soon be the subject of a lawsuit. With the promenade in disrepair, the city wants the developer and homeowners to build a brick walkway at the water's edge that would join the seven-mile promenade that wraps around the Inner Harbor from Federal Hill to Canton.

CA needs to think through the proposed elevated tree canopy walk for the Inner Arbor Plan. The reality is that during construction the contractor will clear cut trees for a 25- to 50-foot right-of-way along the walkway route for construction vehicle access and delivery of materials and for underground utilities (electric power, fire plugs water line, sewer line). Then a 25-foot-wide permanent paved or gravel emergency and maintenance access road will need to be built along the cleared right-of-way.

COLUMBIA -- The windows of at least three cars traveling along Harper's Farm Road were shot out last night by someone firing a pellet gun at the vehicles, reportedly from an overhead pedestrian walkway.Police said no one was injured in a series of shootings that occurred shortly before 6 p.m.Police declined to compare the shootings to those on Interstate 295 outside Jacksonville, Fla., in recent months that have resulted in numerous vehicles being hit by gunfire and objects and one driver killed.

Shannon McDonald, a South Carroll High School senior, will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open a handicapped-accessible trail, bridge and walkway that were recently constructed in the wetlands behind the school in Winfield.The ceremony will be held at 12: 45 p.m. tomorrow and concludes Shannon's community service project to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest achievement in Girl Scouting.She coordinated the project with the help of science teacher Robert Foor-Hogue, fellow students and her family.