Users of the Montour Trail will face construction detours and closures this spring and summer, but the fall is expected to bring a payoff: nearly 36 continuous miles open from Coraopolis to South Park.
Four major projects are expected to be finished this year, three of which will fill missing links on the trail.
“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” said Ned Williams, president of the Montour Trail Council. “There will be some really big connections.”
Work to rehabilitate the Library Viaduct over Route 88 in South Park was restarted last week after a winter shutdown and the span is expected to be completed next month, he said.
But several months of work remain to finish a 940-foot trail section on the eastern end of the bridge to link to Pleasant Street and provide a direct connection to the Port Authority’s Light Rail Transit station at Library. Mr. Williams said he hopes that segment will be completed by mid- or late summer.
Trail volunteers will rebuild the 1.6-mile segment from the Arrowhead Trail in Peters to the Library Viaduct, which may cause occasional weekday closures, he said.
A second major bridge project is underway along Valley Brook Road in Peters to link the western end of the Arrowhead Trail with the Montour. The first of two bridges has been completed and the second is under construction, with one of two abutments in place. Steel girders are being fabricated and are expected to arrive in April, and the bridge is expected to by open in early August.
Until then, trail users must travel on a section of the road, a detour that the trail’s website said is “only suitable for experienced road cyclists.”
A construction project to fill the missing link at Routes 50 and 980 in Cecil will start in April, when the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation begins a $2.3 million intersection improvement.
The work will realign the roads into a plus intersection, eliminating the jog for Route 980 traffic. It will include a trail bridge over both roads, eliminating the need for bicyclists to negotiate wooden steps, a steep slope and a dangerous road crossing. The project is expected to be completed in September, Mr. Williams said.
A four-mile spur called the Westland Branch, in the works for more than four years, is nearly ready for an official opening. The branch extends from the mainline west of the Route 50-980 intersection and goes south to the village of Westland in Mount Pleasant. It will provide improved Montour Trail access for much of Washington County.
It follows the path of a new railroad spur connecting the MarkWest natural gas processing plant near Houston Borough with the Wheeling & Lake Erie line.
Officials must correct some drainage issues and install warning lights where the spur crosses Route 50. Although some have already ridden the section, its official opening is likely in late spring, Mr. Williams said.
Meanwhile, Washington County officials hope to resurface portions of the Panhandle Trail this season. The trail extends from Collier in Allegheny County to Weirton, W.Va., and connects with the Montour. Seventeen miles of trail are in Washington County.
After two rounds of construction bids came in too high, officials downsized this season’s scope of work. About three to four miles will be resurfaced in asphalt, including chronic poor drainage areas and trail sections in Burgettstown and McDonald, county planning director Lisa Cessna said. The original plan was to resurface several additional miles in crushed limestone but that was deferred after the lowest bid came in at nearly $1 million, she said.
First Published: March 17, 2015, 4:10 a.m.