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Montour Trail enthusiast spurred to leadership role
Wednesday, February 07, 2001 By Mary Niederberger, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Peter Kohnke used to sit on the front porch of his home on Fruitwood Drive in Bethel Park and watch train cars pass on the Montour Railroad tracks along the top of a nearby hill.
Now he can sit on that same porch and watch people walking, jogging and biking along a trail that has replaced the old rail line.
If Kohnke gets a great deal of satisfaction watching the bikers, hikers and joggers, it's well earned. He was a major force as president of the Friends of the Montour Trail in Bethel Park behind the effort to build the two-mile trail spur in Bethel Park.
Now he's president of the Montour Trail Council, which oversees construction of about 55 miles of trail along the abandoned railroad right of way from Coraopolis to Clairton.
"It's like I've been punished for good behavior," joked Kohnke, who served as council vice president last year and spends so much time on trail business his wife, Denise, refers to herself as a "trail widow."
To Kohnke, trail business isn't just paper pushing -- though it does involve applying for grants, begging for money from other sources, getting local government approvals and right-of-way permissions. It's also meant a lot of hands-on work.
He's spent countless weekends with groups of volunteers pulling weeds and cutting and clearing the trail path through the woods.
"We picked up 40 to 50 loads of debris that they cleared," Bethel Park council President Tim Moury said. "If it wasn't for his persistence, I'm not sure there would be a trail there."
Councilman Jim Hannan said Kohnke lobbied for the trail for years before it was built.
"I was looking at some old meeting minutes the other day from years ago, and there was Peter Kohnke in front of council want- ing to preserve the railways for walking and biking. He goes back a long way," Hannan said.
Kohnke's persistence, even when it appeared the Bethel Park spur was unlikely to get funding, eventually paid off. Hannan said spurs generally get less funding priority than main line parts of the trail.
He was able to have the funds diverted to Bethel Park, however, when a section that was supposed to be done in another community wasn't cleared and ready when funding became available.
"The other community wasn't ready, but we were because of Peter and his great orchestration of volunteers," Hannan said.
Bethel Park council has been so impressed with Kohnke's Friends of the Montour Trail in Bethel Park that it has been allocated $10,000 in each of the last three years.
Kohnke, a native of West Lafayette, Ind., moved to Bethel Park in 1975 when he brought his brand new Ph.D. in civil engineering to the area to work at the Westinghouse Bettis plant in West Mifflin.
Now he works for Ansys Inc., a computer software firm in Southpointe, Washington County.
He has two grown daughters who live out of state, and a 16-year-old stepson, Craig, who lives with him and his wife. His only real hobbies are working and playing on the trail.
Mostly he likes to bike, but he also walks the trail -- like other volunteers -- to patrol it against litter, dog dirt and any other threats by users.
He sees the trail as a community gathering point, a central sidewalk, so to speak, in a town with few neighborhood sidewalks. "There are always people on the trail and it makes me feel good, very good."
Kohnke's involvement with the trail started with a $25 donation to the Rails to Trails Conservancy, which was organizing in 1989 to start creating trails along the abandoned railroad right of ways.
About six months later he got a letter asking if he'd be interested in working on a local trail. He started going to meetings and ended up on the board of the Montour Trail Council.
The first mile of trail was put down in 1992, and since then, nearly 30 miles of trail have been completed. Before getting started on Bethel Park's spur, Kohnke helped to clear sections for 4.25 miles of trail in Cecil.
Dennis Pfeiffer, the trail council's outgoing president, said Kohnke will be even busier as president because he remains the leader of Friends of the Montour Trail in Bethel Park and chairman of the committee that plans to raise several hundred thousand dollars for a trail bridge over Clifton Road in Bethel Park.
"He's a wonderful guy for the trail," Pfeiffer said.
Kohnke said his term as president is for one year, but he could be appointed for two more years.
He hopes to serve the full three years, or long enough to allow him to see completion of all 55 miles of the main line.
"That way I'll be able to say I've been with the trail from beginning to end," he said.
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