Ian Sanders unveils state line to his parents, Ward and Erica Sanders, and sister Lilly; DRJTBC Commissioner Yuki Moore Laurenti; DRJTBC Executive Director Joseph Resta; New Hope Mayor Larry Keller; Dee Dee Bowman and Deborah Lang of New Hope Historical Society; Jeff McVey of Lambertville Historical Society; and Tara Shepherd, head of HART Commuter Information Services.
Well, if you’ve noticed the newly-painted state border line painted on the walkway of the New Hope-Lambertville free bridge, and wondered why the heck this unique point in history has been chosen for the undertaking, we have an answer, courtesy of the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC).
The boundary marking was the idea of Ian Sanders, a 12-year-old Lambertville student and son of a city council member who wrote a letter to the Commission late last year requesting the agency to designate where the state line falls on his local bridge’s walkway.
The commission opted to install the state line to commemorate the bridge’s 200th anniversary. The original wooden covered bridge at the location was built by private investors and declared “ready for crossing” on September 12, 1814.
This past Thursday, the line was formerly unveiled by Ian as Commission representatives, local officials, history enthusiasts, and his family applauded.
The state line location was ascertained through Google satellite images. The colors in the line are identical to the colors in the Commission’s D-shaped logo: the green representing the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, the buff-gold color representing the sands of New Jersey and the white center line representing the Delaware River between the two states. The Commission’s full name and logo appear on the white stripe. The words ‘Pennsylvania’ and ‘New Jersey’ are painted in white on their respective colored stripes.
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