Work to begin on two Montour Trail bridges
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Bicyclists leaving the Montour Trail wait to cross busy Morganza Road in Cecil. A new bridge will span over Morganza Road at the intersection with Oriole Road. It should be completed in June. -
Bicycles are lined up by people attending a groundbreaking ceremony for the two new bridges being built on the Montour Trail in Cecil.
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Bikers, walkers and runners soon will travel the Montour Trail more easily and safely, with construction of two new trail bridges over busy roads officially beginning Saturday.
When completed next June, the bridges in Hendersonville, Washington County, will allow trail users to travel 35 miles along the trail from Coraopolis to South Park with just one road crossing. Public officials, including U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy and Cecil Supervisor Frank Ludwin, joined trail volunteers to break ground on the project, which they said will eliminate a dangerous situation.
"It's going to get rid of a very bad safety hazard we've had down here for years," Dennis Sims, president of the Cecil Friends of the Montour Trail, told a group of elected officials, Montour Trail Council volunteers and the owners of a local business, Burgh's Pizza and Wings Garage in Bridgeville, that has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to help create the trail.
Expansion of the trail also continues to remake how the region's residents travel and recreate -- hopefully forever, said Washington County Commissioner J. Bracken Burns.
"Maybe 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, when our grandchildren are driving the bus, we'll park all our cars and go back to walking and biking everywhere," Mr. Burns said. "I think that would be a better life."
The 12-foot-wide bridges will carry the trail over Morganza and Georgetown roads, following the abandoned paths of two coal-hauling railroads, the Montour Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad Peters Creek Branch. Railroad trestles once crossed the roads where the bridges will be built but were demolished when the ties and rails were removed.
The trail itself is wide and clear, with hard-packed gravel for smooth biking. Bushes and grass on either side are carefully trimmed back by volunteers. But where trestles once crossed a road, the trail now ends abruptly -- at Morganza Road, about 20 feet above the roadway -- forcing users to walk or bike on nearby roads before crossing.
First Published October 24, 2011 12:00 am
