Beaver County Trail Would Help Connect Erie to Nation's Capital
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
1 December 2011
By Karen Kadilak
The Ohio River Trail Council is hosting a public meeting on Monday
to discuss a proposed trail through Beaver County that would
become a link in a mega system connecting Lake Erie all the way to
Washington, D.C.
The trail would go from the north shore of the Ohio at the
Monaca-Rochester Bridge to the Ohio state line, connecting with
the Little Beaver Creek Greenway Trail in Columbiana County, Ohio.
A second, so-called south trail, proposed earlier, would go from
the bridge to the Montour Trail in Moon.
Using abandoned railroad corridors, trolley lines and canal
towpaths, the north and south trails would form a 41-mile path.
"We definitely need a lot of public input," said Doniele Russell,
a shared greenways and environmental planner for Beaver County who
is organizing the meeting. "We want to know if we are encroaching
on someone's garden, or are near a school bus stop or a place
where a train goes by at noon.
"Details like those are very important."
The trail -- championed by the nonprofit Ohio River Trail Council
-- would be paid for by the state Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources, Beaver County, the First Energy Foundation and
the 12 communities that would benefit from the path, which would
be north of the Ohio River.
Beaver, Beaver Falls, Bridgewater, Brighton, Fallston, Industry,
Midland, New Brighton, Ohioville, Rochester Borough, Rochester
Township and Vanport are studying the feasibility of the north
trail.
"We have plans drawn up, but they can be changed by what the
public tells us," said Diane Kemp, Midland borough manager, who is
administering the program as an Ohio Rivers Trail Council board
member.
"All public meetings are important, but when you're discussing
trails, they become even more so," Kemp said. "You don't want to
build a trail, then be told later that there's a problem with it."
Proponents tout the north and south trails -- which are expected
to take years and millions of dollars to complete -- as boons to
economic development.
"Trail enthusiasts stop at stores, restaurants and motels," Kemp
said. "(Trails) attract young people."
"I think older people are going to like the trails, too," said
Mario Leone Jr., the Monaca borough manager and a co-founder of
the Ohio River Trail Council. "They're going to find they're good,
reliable places to take daily walks."
Thomas Baxter, executive director of the South Side-based Friends
of the Riverfront, considers the north and south trails good fits
for the proposed expansion of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.
Nearly completed, the Three Rivers Heritage Trail extends for 22
miles on both sides of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.
Plans call for the trail to be extended north and west from the
banks of the Ohio adjacent to Station Square, where it now ends,
to Coraopolis.
"The Ohio River Trail would seem to be a natural progression of
that," Baxter said.
Karen Kadilak can be reached at mshrum@tribweb.com or
412-380-5687.