Described as “generational changing,” recently awarded investments in rails-to-trails will help connect more than 100 miles of recreational trails in Western Pennsylvania, opening previously unrealized pathways to communities poised to benefit economically.

Murrysville to Rankin. O’Hara to East Deer. Aspinwall to Homewood. Plans are underway to grow and connect mostly flat, off-road, recreational trails — accessible to residents of all ages and abilities.

“I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I can say that these investments in trails are generational changing,” said Darla Cravotta, director of community relations and special projects for Allegheny County.

The Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County in September awarded $21.8 million to 18 projects. Some are shovel-ready; others are in the planning stages. Part of the funding comes from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The projects include more than 40 miles of trails and investments in green spaces and parks throughout the county.

The effects will be felt across Western Pennsylvania.

“The goal is to connect everything,” Cravotta said, “and that is what County Executive Rich Fitzgerald wants to do.”

The county funding package pays for sites where money is hard to come by, such as in low- and moderate-income communities, and includes two projects extending the Three Rivers Heritage Trail through the Alle-­Kiski Valley to Freeport.

“If we did not receive these funds, it would have taken years to plan these sections of trails,” said Courtney Mahronich Vita, director of trail development for Friends of the Riverfront, a nonprofit that has developed 33 miles of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.

“The trails go hand-in-hand with physical fitness, recreation, green spaces and spurring economic activity,” Fitzgerald said.

The Great Allegheny Passage, a 150-mile trail from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., created $121 million in economic impact in 2019 in the towns along the trail, according to a study by the Fourth Economy consultants in Pittsburgh.

People opened new businesses in Etna just to tap trail users there, said Mary Ellen Ramage, the borough’s manager. Etna received a county grant to develop a trail from its riverfront park to Shaler.

• Trail towns poised to capitalize on increasing access, popularity of rails-to-trails

Kelsey Ripper, executive director of Friends of the Riverfront, which maintains and develops extensions for the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, said she has never seen this level of investment in trails in Allegheny County at one time.

“We will see significant progress to a level we’ve not seen before,” she said.

Connecting Carrie Furnaces to Westmoreland County

The county awarded the two largest grant packages to the Carrie Blast Furnaces site and the adjoining Rankin Hot Metal Bridge with a connector trail to the Westmoreland Heritage Trail, and the Brilliant Line connecting Aspinwall and Pittsburgh.

Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Landmark projects, with grants totaling $8.7 million, include design, engineering and rehabilitation of the adjoining hot metal bridge with a new off-ramp and switchback to connect to the Three Rivers Heritage Trail/GAP trail.

The grant also pays for design and engineering of a 9-mile trail to connect the Carrie Furnaces site to Braddock, East Pittsburgh, Monroeville, North Braddock, North Versailles, Pitcairn, Rankin, Turtle Creek and Trafford to the western end of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail.

“Anytime we have our different sections of trail and get approached about connections to other towns, it’s a benefit all around,” said Brandon Simpson, Westmoreland County parks director.

The Westmoreland Heritage Trail extends 8.5 miles from Saltsburg to Delmont and 9.3 miles from Export to Trafford. The western section from Murrysville to Trafford is heavily wooded and traverses a former rail line.

“It gives our residents abilities to travel outside of Westmoreland but other folks from outside of Westmoreland to come here,” he said.

The prospect of connecting with the GAP trail and the Carrie Blast Furnaces sites “will be a tremendous asset,” said Paul Estok, program director at Monroeville’s parks department.

“When it connects to the City of Pittsburgh and the Westmoreland Trail, the connectivity will be incredible,” he said. “People will have the ability to walk, ride or run near, be along the river and stop in towns for something to drink and some ice cream.”

In the Alle-Kiski Valley

In 2011, the state approved plans for a 26-mile recreational trail along the Allegheny River threaded through 18 communities paralleling Route 28: Pittsburgh, Millvale, Shaler, Etna, Sharpsburg, Aspinwall, Fox Chapel, O’Hara, Blawnox, Harmar, Cheswick, Springdale, Springdale Township, Frazer, Tarentum, Brackenridge, Harrison and Freeport.

Since then, the trail’s planners, Friends of the Riverfront, have worked to develop the trail in segments.

The county awarded $1.1 million for design and engineering of trail sections that total almost 9 miles from East Deer to Springdale Township and Harmar to O’Hara.

“This funding pays for work on two massive sections, and that will push the other sections of the trail to move through,” Vita said. “If the stars align, construction for those two big chunks of the trail could take place between three to five years after that.”

Trail planning already is going on in the neighboring communities of Cheswick and Springdale. A swath of roughly 12 miles from O’Hara to East Deer is in the works — about 40% of the trail from Millvale to Freeport, Vita said.

The Friends group already is looking at state, and maybe federal, dollars to pay for the trail construction, she said.

The Aspinwall connection

A $4.7 million grant for the Brilliant Line will pay for more than 4 miles of trails sprouting from the Allegheny RiverTrail Park, including a 3.6-mile trail along an old rail line into Pittsburgh.

“This is huge for us. It’s a way to connect to the city and connect people on both sides of the river,” said ARTP board member Trish Klatt. “From our inception, Allegheny RiverTrail Park had the vision to inspire trail development in every direction.”

ARTP has been working on buying the Brilliant Line rail corridor that runs from Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood near Kelly Street and Fifth Avenue, continuing parallel along Washington Boulevard, and then over the Allegheny River into Aspinwall.

The nonprofit ARTP will convert this elevated railway to a bike and pedestrian trail, which will be one of the most scenic trails in the region, Klatt said. The money also will go toward creating smaller trails out of the park, including a connection to UPMC St. Margaret hospital.

Klatt said the new trail will rest on an architecturally stunning former rail line with seven bridges, but she is asking for patience. It will take at least a few years to complete the park, she said.

Connecting Oakmont, Verona, Plum, Penn Hills

Penn Hills Planning Director Chris Blackwell and others have been working conceptually for years on a trail connecting Oakmont, Verona, Penn Hills and Plum.

A $1.1 million county grant will pay for engineering and planning of the almost 14-mile trail.

“It’s a huge success for the eastern suburbs,” Blackwell said. “I envisioned this taking many years. The grant will compress the time and make it happen a lot faster.”

The trail will go from Steel City Rowing in Verona to Oakmont for about 2 miles via road, then will go off-road on former railroad property along Plum Creek, with local parks along the way, and then end at Boyce Park in Plum.

“You could be at Milltown Park in Penn Hills, and your kid is playing baseball. With the trail, the opportunity is there for one child to play baseball while other family members ride their bikes for a couple of miles to the store,” Blackwell said.

Blackwell hopes to complete the planning and engineering of the trail by the end of 2023. The next steps include reaching out to property owners and holding public meetings before trail construction.

More Pittsburgh history in the making

Rehabilitating the Rankin Hot Metal Bridge, a specially fortified bridge to carry liquid steel from one mill to the next, has been on the drawing board of trail and preservation groups for at least 20 years, said Ron Baraff, director of historic resources and facilities for Rivers of Steel, a nonprofit economic revitalization group covering eight counties.

“The bridge is a direct connection to the Carrie Blast Furnaces site and ties to the GAP and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail to Turtle Creek and beyond,” Baraff said. “The ability to have that connection to reuse such a unique historical asset as the hot metal bridge is a great opportunity for the region.”

What sets many of the trails in Allegheny County and the Mon Valley apart is they wind through former industrialized sections with artifacts like the Carrie Blast Furnaces in Rankin and Swissvale.

The Carrie Blast Furnaces, pre-World War II relics from the sprawling U.S. Steel Homestead Steel Works, are the only nonoperative blast furnaces remaining in the region.

“The Allegheny County trail grants provide a huge door of opportunity for the landmark site and communities,” Baraff said. “It will bring people from all over the region and country to this part of the Mon Valley to see something completely unique that you can’t see anywhere else.”

Shaler-Etna on the trail map

“The benefits are so much more than what you initially think — ‘Oh, another trail,’ ” said Ramage of Etna, which received $400,000 for design and engineering of the 3-mile-long Little Pine Creek Connector Trail from Shaler to Etna’s Riverfront Trail and Park.

Etna is poised to be a trail town as part of the Three Rivers Heritage trail, although it still needs to link to Millvale and Sharpsburg.

The trail is spurring economic development with people getting off the trail for something to eat or to get a beer or pick up something.

“It’s like a plate of spaghetti,” Ramage said. “The trail stuff touches other stuff.”

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