Perspectives: Amish & Bridges

An interesting little story was relayed to me by my seat-mate at a conference I attended last week.  It just goes to show that there are always things outside our normal frame of reference that we don't consider.

The gentleman I was talking with, McL, works for a large, well recognized international fishing organization.  The area where I work has a very large population of Amish and Mennonites, of various sects.  He was looking to gain access to the people's lands to do some survey work on the watercourses crossing their properties.

McL knew that the way into these communities was to approach 2 or 3 of the community leaders, speak with them, and then go away until a Sunday or 2 had passed and the issue could be discussed at church.  Then, when you drive in the driveway, everyone knows who you are and what you want before you even make it out of your car.

After doing his background work, he waited until the next week and then started visiting farms.  At one location, he claims he was barely out of his car when the landowner, and older farmer, had offered up 1/2 an acre on two of his properties to create parking lots for anglers, and would even be amenable to creating a trail along the creeks.

McL was startled by this offer, and asked the farmer why he would want to do that.

The farmer responded that anglers make travel very dangerous for anyone travelling by horse and buggy.  You see, the anglers park at the bridges, and walk along the creeks to where they want to fish. Horse & buggies usually travel on the shoulder of the road, to stay out of conflict with cars and trucks.  The anglers parked on the shoulder mean that the horse and buggies need to be out in the stream of traffic, at their slower pace, for even longer, to cross the bridge.  Occasionally this causes traffic to be annoyed by slowing down for them, but more often the problem results from feed trucks or other larger vehicles using the downslope to the bridge, in a valley, to gain speed to make it up the other side.

McL sat for awhile after his conversation with the farmer and just watched the bridge, and the road.  He timed it, and from a large truck at highway speed cresting the top of the hill, to them being on the bridge, was an average of 7 seconds.  Barely enough time for a horse and buggy to clear the bridge, let alone pass some parked cars as well.

So, in partnership with the larger organization, some local fishing and conservation clubs, and the landowners, there are now a series of small parking lots, with garbage cans, and some basic trails popping up along our local streams and creeks.  There have also been trees planted to designate the parking areas, and shade the creeks.

Along with, maybe, a new found understanding of issues we hadn't thought of before.