Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette

Building a trail through Pittsburgh has taken 15 years and it's far from over. Since 1991 this city has gone from zero miles to 20 trail miles along its dramatic riverfronts, and the opportunity to extend the trails further into the county has never been clearer. Only now are we seeing the need to promote our trails as one of our region's best assets.

It is easy to carp endlessly about government bureaucracies and administrators and selfish or indifferent public behavior, but our Three Rivers Trail was created by city and county employees, by volunteers of the Friends of the Riverfront, by far-seeing private foundations, and by state and federal agencies.

With new administrations in city and county government, trail advocates must keep up the pressure to ensure the region's trail building momentum is not lost.

Mayor Bob O'Connor and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato are sorting out their priorities in making Pittsburgh a desirable place to live, and they want to unite in presenting to Harrisburg their case for regional development. Let's make government decisions about funding trails easier through our advocacy and support.

		Robert J. Gangewere, former editor of Carnegie Magazine, is a founding board member of the Friends of the Riverfront (rgangewere@yahoo.com).

The arguments seem obvious. Trails promote a healthy lifestyle, they are free, they appeal to people of all ages, they are alternate transportation in a city locked in traffic congestion, and they bring us next to our rivers. Trails are good for business because they draw people from elsewhere, and attract tourist money. They are a regional amenity that puts Pittsburgh at the top of a national list when it comes to savoring unique urban trail experiences.

None of this was obvious in 1991 when Mayor Sophie Masloff dedicated a neglected stretch of riverfront on the South Side, from 18th Street to Ninth Street, as Pittsburgh's first rail-trail. She was responding to a proposal from the newly formed Friends of the Riverfront, and in her small audience of the faithful stood state representative (and future three-term mayor) Tom Murphy. On that dismal, cloudy afternoon, few would have called this a momentous event.

But it was. The national omens were good in 1991, because the funding scene was set with the federal ISTEA (The "Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act" -- ouch, what a title!) legislation that sent millions in transportation funds to the states for transportation enhancement programs. This meant alternative transportation, and Pittsburgh was rich in abandoned railroad corridors.

Pennsylvania created supportive programs, and key funds were available from private foundations. Thus Pittsburgh packaged rail-trails into long-delayed brownfield development projects. The Friends of the Riverfront leveraged federal funds with foundation support.

Ask yourself -- why did the South Side trail go through Baldwin Borough outside the city limits to reach Homestead? Because the Friends obtained a federal grant, bought the property and turned it over to local government for public use.

Trail-building takes years. You must acquire the land, negotiate easements, settle legal conflicts, find funds, construct the trail, landscape it and interpret it with heritage signs and maps. There is opposition or reluctance from businesses, commercial developers, landowners, railroads, government bureaucracies and people worried about safety and vandalism.

Neither the Steelers nor UPMC originally wanted a trail on the river side of their South Side facilities, but the Steelers finally shortened their practice fields from 100 yards to 80 yards to let it through. The Allegheny County Jail did not want the "Jail Trail" in its front yard for security reasons. But in the long run, these problems fade, and the trails bring a higher quality of life to the public.

Trail-building takes vision and determination. In one of his last interviews before leaving office, Mayor Murphy told me that building trails was "never about the money, but about the will to make it happen."

Linda Boxx, president of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, has worked for a decade with committed volunteers from seven trail groups to create the Great Allegheny Passage, linking Pittsburgh to Cumberland, and to Washington via the C&O Canal Towpath. In the 1960s Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas saved the 184-mile C&O canal from becoming a highway by inviting journalists and others to hike with him along that beautiful old canal towpath. Eventually it was designated as a national linear park.

Before a trail is built, the public seems indifferent; after it is under their feet, a constituency forms and thousands will proclaim their love for it.

There are still many local challenges.

How do we get the South Side Trail to The Waterfront in the Homestead area, and overcome the longstanding opposition of Sandcastle to having a public trail on its property?

How do we take the trail from Millvale to the Waterworks on the Allegheny River?

How do we complete The Steel Valley Trail between Homestead and McKeesport? This will be the last section completed of the 300-mile-trail link between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., because local obstacles have to be overcome. To the west, can we link the beautiful, suburban Montour Trail to the Pittsburgh International Airport?

Here's a Pittsburgh vision: an East End Loop for bikers, walkers and runners, linking Frick Park on the Monongahela River to Highland Park on the Allegheny River. The city has it planned. This means one continuous trail around Pittsburgh, using three parks and public streets. It is a great circle, one that includes an outstanding pedestrian walkway on the West End Bridge over the Ohio River, as planned by the Riverlife Task Force and Alcoa.

As trails evolve, their names get confusing. "The Great Allegheny Passage" that reaches Pittsburgh is an overlay name for the "Three Rivers Heritage Trail" that actually goes there. The Riverlife Task Force has an overlay plan for "Three Rivers Park" surrounding the Point.

For most trail users, the common names used are of their favorite choices: the Eliza Furnace Trail, or the South Side Trail and the North Shore Trail.

But each section is part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail system, created by the Friends of the Riverfront. It is the Friends who find volunteers for clean-up days and simple maintenance, who put up heritage signs (this is my special interest), who arrange with Dasani for free bikes, who sponsor the Pittsburgh Triathlon with Seagate, who install plantings in the Riverfronts Naturally program, who help develop a water trail for non-motorized boats, and who are devoted to seeing the rail-trails radiate further into Allegheny County.

Our region is on the verge of creating a great trail network, and this is no time to stop.

At the county level, trail users need to be advocates for their favorite trail projects.

In Pittsburgh -- if I may be so bold -- people can join us at the Friends of the Riverfront (we're in the phone book).