Bid awarded for fourth phase of Westmoreland Heritage Trail between Murrysville, Export

The next phase of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail, connecting Murrysville and Export, is projected to be complete by late August.

County commissioners on Thursday approved a $1.3 million agreement with Plum Contracting to construct the fourth phase of the trail, which will extend its western section through Murrysville to Lincoln Avenue in Export.

And thanks to a recently-announced $320,000 grant from the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the next 3.4 miles of trail are now fully funded.

“We’re planning to break ground around March,” said Jeff Richards, planning coordinator for the county’s parks and recreation department. “Hopefully, it won’t rain as much (next) year.”

Richards said a pre-construction meeting will take place next month with county officials, Plum Contracting, PennDOT and other project stakeholders.

“We’ll get organized for the project,” Richards said, “Then throughout the winter, the contractor will be doing logistical stuff like lining up materials.”

Funding from DCNR will allow trail officials to do some additional, beneficial work.

“There are a number of locations along Turtle Creek where we can do some stream-bank stabilization,” Richards said. “We’d like to try and fortify the stream bank before getting into construction of the trail, and some of the (DCNR) funding will go toward that.”

Renovation work on a bridge along the trail’s proposed path, near Rivertowne Brewing in Murrysville, will also be paid with the DCNR funds.

At a recent Export Borough meeting, council members said they hope to be able to cut the ribbon on the trail’s fourth phase at the 2019 Export Ethnic Food & Music Festival, which is held each August.

“We’re all working to get it done in time to hopefully do that,” Richards said.

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick at 724-850-2862, pvarine@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MurrysvilleStar.