Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk

This guide to the Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk in Philadelphia opens with a puzzle: why does a path built for speed over water bend and wobble instead of running straight? It traces the crowding on the old towpath in the early 2000s that forced the choice, and the audacious 2014 build that hung a two-thousand-foot concrete bridge over the river on piers drilled into bedrock. Stop at one of its four wide overlooks and you will likely find an angler's line dropped toward the current, or a rower gliding past from the boathouses upstream.