Most of the Great Allegheny Passage has been opened for the past four years, providing bicycle travelers with a 150-mile traffic-free rail-trail from Cumberland, Maryland, to the outskirts of Pittsburgh.
The final 9 miles between McKeesport and Pittsburgh has been touch and go, however, with missing bridges and trail segments absent in the urban area. The trail association even suggests that cyclists catch a shuttle through this section, unless they're accustomed to riding unfriendly roads.
Now, the last pieces to the puzzle are falling into place.
Site control
Allegheny County officials announced last week that they now have “site control” of that final 9 miles and expect the last sections of the trail to be constructed before the end of next year. Then cyclists truly will have a traffic free route for 334.5 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington DC using the GAP and the C&O Canal Towpath.
The last piece of the puzzle fell into place last week, according to the Post-Gazette. That's when county officials reached announced their agreements for a .85-mile easement through the Sandcastle Water Park and adjoining CSX Railroad right-of-way.
A ceremony is planned on Tuesday at Sandcastle.
Finish in late 2011
The county is paying $250,000 to Sandcastle and $40,000 to CSX. Sandcastle said the money will reimburse their cost of reconfiguring the parking lot to accommodate the GAP trail. The county is aiming for Nov. 11, 2011, to finish the final section of the trail.
Other parts of the 9-mile trail interruption have been filled with the placement of two prefab bridges and donation of another river crossing from US Steel. A 2.5-mile stretch of trail that comprises the prefab bridges is expected to be complete next spring.
The county says it will work on the Sandcastle section over the winter, then shut down construction in the spring when the water park gets busy. Construction will resume in the fall.
Economic impact
Linda McKenna Boxx, one of the leading proponents of the GAP trail, told the Post-Gazette that nearly 750,000 people use parts of the trail annually. She expects that to skyrocket to one million after the entire trail is opened.
An economic impact study conducted along the trail in 2008 and 2009 found that bicycle travelers and other trail users pumped about $40 million a year into the local economies, contributing $7.5 million alone in wages.
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