Mar 12, 2007 3 min read

The last nine miles of trail between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., took a step closer to completion Friday when Gov. Ed Rendell awarded $1 million for the Great Allegheny Passage, scheduled to be complete as part of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebration in 2008. The Great Allegheny Passage is a multiple use trail system now 132 miles long, completed from McKeesport to Cumberland, Md., where it joins the 184-mile long C&O Canal towpath. The trail travels through a scenic and historic corridor, roughly following early footpaths leading west from tidal areas of Virginia. The last nine-mile gap between McKeesport and the city of Pittsburgh is part of the Steel Valley section.

The governor announced $23 million in awards through the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) for conservation and recreation projects designed to help revitalize communities and protect natural resources from Growing Greener II, a voter-approved, $625 million bond issue, and Keystone ’93, a fund generated from a portion of the realty transfer tax.

“Growing Greener II gives us more opportunities to partner with local communities to help them realize their recreation and conservation goals,” Rendell said.

“Allegheny County is taking a real leadership role,” said Hannah Hardy, president of the Steel Valley Trail Council. “A terrific team is helping us. Without the commitment and focus of Dan Onorato and his staff, we could not possibly achieve this in time for the 250th celebration of the region next year.”

“We can acquire the property and move quickly into design and construction. We hope to be breaking ground on several sections of what we call ‘the gap in the GAP’ (Great Allegheny Passage) by early summer.”

“This is yet another indication of the tremendous and steadfast support the state has given to this trail,” said Linda McKenna Boxx, president of the Allegheny Trail Alliance whose groups are building and maintaining the Passage.

“DCNR was there 30 years ago when this project started, and it’s great that they are giving us this significant funding to help us cross the finish line.”

“In no uncertain terms, this last nine-mile section is the most challenging,” said Boxx. “Up to this point, we were building trail on abandoned rail lines; here in the Mon Valley, there are still many active rail lines and many active industries. We have to create the corridor, assembling properties one by one. And there are difficult and expensive construction issues, such as bridges over the river and over railroad tracks.”

“We finished the southern connection to the C&O Canal towpath in December and are working as hard as we can to make the connection to Point State Park by next fall.”

The Steel Valley section passes through many communities, including McKeesport, Duquesne, West Mifflin, Whitaker, Homestead and West Homestead where it meets near the Glenwood Bridge Three Rivers Heritage Trail System in the city of Pittsburgh.