Inquirer Editorial: Quacky idea for boats

The Nutter administration has laid an egg with a plan to allow Ride the Ducks tour boats to invade the Schuylkill.

Let's start by acknowledging there are no ideal options for the Duck tours, in the aftermath of the collision with a barge in July on the Delaware River that killed two tourists. The boats could not be allowed back on the Delaware, with its heavy ship traffic.

The Delaware did have advantages. It's not far from the location where tourists pick up the ride at the Independence Visitors Center on Sixth Street. And the vehicles gained easy access to the river via an unobtrusive ramp at the base of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

But now the city has given the go-ahead for Ride the Ducks to cruise on the Schuylkill next spring. The drawbacks of this plan outweigh the advantages.

The Schuylkill is a safer place for the boats, and the scenery is lovely. From a boat, views of the Fairmount Water Works and the Center City skyline would give tourists a perspective that even some city residents fail to appreciate.

The nonprofit Schuylkill Banks organization has worked hard to create a jewel of trails and parkland along the river. The more people who discover this hidden oasis, the better.

But visiting the banks of the Schuylkill on foot or by bike is not the same as launching a tour boat into the river. The Ducks require a ramp sloped gentler than the grade of the riverbank. That means digging a large trench beneath the bike trail so the boats could access the river.

Plans are not final, but the construction of this trench would likely mar the landscape downriver from the Art Museum, just off Martin Luther King Drive. It also might require fencing to safeguard pedestrians and bicyclists above it. Ride the Ducks would pay for the work.

The Schuylkill River Development Corp. says the plan could work if it's done right. But the SRDC doesn't have the final say.

There's also the impracticality of driving the tour vehicles all the way across Center City, from Independence Mall to the Art Museum. In the past, the vehicles focused on sights from South Street to Old City. Now the tentative plan is to drive more than 20 blocks across town - 60 vehicle trips per day in peak season - just to reach the water for a roughly 10-minute cruise.

Ride the Ducks is popular with tourists. But it's difficult to imagine that the city would attract fewer visitors if the boats weren't available. The potential loss of revenue for the city isn't worth the added disruptions. Another water attraction could be better.