No longer will walkers who want to get across Koonce City Lake have to swim across.

On Wednesday, Dec. 21, the City of High Point presented an early Christmas present to the people who enjoy using the park – the city finally opened the much-anticipated greenway bridge across Koonce City Lake.

The pedestrian bridge runs alongside the Penny Road vehicle bridge and it connects High Point City Lake Park, which is on the south side of the bridge, to the High Point Piedmont Environmental Center on the north side.

Also on the north side of the bridge is the junction of the High Point Greenway and the Guilford County Bicentennial Greenway.

Though the walking bridge has appeared to the eye to be finished for nearly a month, barricades remained in place until this week when the bridge finally opened to the public. For several weeks prior to the December 21 opening, even though the bridge had been closed, the pedestrian bridge’s built-in lights had begun illuminating the area at night.

Now, both ends of the bridge have a gate with signage stating that the bridge will close at 5 p.m. each day.  That’s the closing time for High Point City Lake Park at this time of year.

High Point pedestrians using the bridge for the first time Wednesday said they like that it’s a well-built, attractive bridge that offers some great scenery of the lake, the shoreline and the park.

In the last several years, High Point and Guilford County have both been building more walking trails and connecting up greenway paths in the city and the southwest corner of Guilford County.