Bridgeport's Lyle Park and the Trail Of Trash

Lyle Park is one of the two parks in Bridgeport Township that sits along the Cass River.  Lyle Park starts at the end of the Historic State Street Bridge and runs alongside the Cass River down to the Fort Street Bridge. This path is part of Bridgeport's "pedestrian walkway" or rail trail system.  Next to the path is a ditch type area that sits between the path and the railroad tracks.  This ditch is filled with trash of every kind imaginable. During flooding and rainy periods this ditch is also filled with water, sometimes very low level stagnant water. It is sad to see that this low lying wet area is also home to old car tires, the perfect mosquito breeding grounds.  I am not sure if the railroad company owns this ditch area or if Bridgeport Township does, but you would think that no matter who owns it, Bridgeport would keep it cleaned up since it sits just several feet from their trail. I have heard that Bridgeport projects 30,000 people a year are going to come and walk this trail system starting at the Historic State Street bridge.  Having two trash filled parks as part of their trail system doesn't seem like a good way to attract all these visitors, doesn't seem like the kind of setting you would want to showcase for Bridgeport.  I took just a few photos of some of the trash in this ditch area alongside the trail.

Car tires number 1 & 2

Car tire number 3

Car tire number 4

Car tire number 5

UPDATED APRIL 12TH, I was at Lyle Park again today and found 2 more tires that were under the water before.  

Car tire number 6

Car tire number 7

Some photos of the other types of trash lying in this ditch area.  The trash includes old carpeting and shingles, bottles, lumber, railroad ties, concrete blocks, metal, etc....

Sadly some of these visitors to the park trail system leave their garbage behind and of course there are the ever present "graffiti artists".

And hopefully before next winter comes Bridgeport will find some way to keep the snowmobiles off of the Historic State Street bridge.  While we still had snow I saw the tracks of where the snowmobiles had been running over the bridge and it the areas where there was only a thin layer of snow on the bridge, they left these gouges in the wood planking.